The final meeting of the state environmental expert commission set up to evaluate the East Siberia-Pacific pipeline feasibility study was held earlier that day, Mr Usov said, adding that the final appraisal paper saying that the project was environmentally dangerous had been signed by 40 of the 52 experts. "This outcome is rather unexpected, although it is quite right from the legal and environmental points of view. Recent events demonstrated that [the state-owned oil pipeline operator] Transneft was prepared to push the project through by hook or by crook, brushing people's opinion aside," said Mr Usov. He went on to say that the experts' conclusion is "very important for the country: it is one of the socially-important things which let me hope that one day we will be living a sane life, that environmental reasons can prevail over an immediate desire to earn more money. "Now Rostekhnadzor [the Russian Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Monitoring] is expected to issue an official paper to confirm the experts' decision. And we hope that this service will not give in to Transneft's pressure and abide by the law," Mr Usov said.