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As ChemLinked reported, the newly revised Law of Environmental Impact Assessment of China will go into effect from Sep 1st 2016. Some major features of the new law indicate that the environmental impact assessment will be marginalized in China’s environment management system in the future.
Problems
The environmental impact assessment of new constructions has played a significant role in China’s environment management system. According to statistics from the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of last year, from 2011 ~ 2015, there were 151 projects disapproved based on environmental impact assessment. The total investment involved reached up to 760 billion RMB. The industries involved included chemical, petroleum, iron and steel, etc. The huge figure shows the power of environmental assessment. The goal of environmental assessment was to significantly reduce environmental pollution. Construction project couldn’t proceed beyond environmental assessment approval because it is the precondition for other approvals, including project feasibility approval and other examination and administrative approvals.
However, there were problems caused by the priority assigned to environmental assessment. Many enterprises used fraudulent data in reports. A lot of administrative resources were wasted on the examination of the false reports which achieved nothing. The approval of environmental assessment was final so once approved construction projects were approved enterprises did little more to reduce environmental impact. The environmental impact assessment system had lost its meaning and failed at its original purpose.
Change
The environmental impact assessment system will soon lose its dominant position because the newly revised law stops it from being the precondition of other approvals. Now enterprises can deal with the assessment and other approvals at the same time. In the future the core content of China’s environment management system will be the license of pollutants discharge.
According to Mr. Guang Xia, the director of Policy Research Center for Environment and Economy (PRCEE) under MEP, in the next 5 years, China will establish and complete the legal system focusing on the pollutants discharge license system. It means that even if an enterprise passes through the environmental impact assessment, it will still be punished when it exceeds the pollutants emission limits. The key purpose of the change is to reduce waste of administrative resources and enhance the efficiency of law enforcement.
Future
The legal basis of the pollutants discharge license system is the recently revised Law of Environmental Protection, the Law on Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution, the Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution, etc. However, people are afraid that the license system still lacks practical feasibility.
First, the legal system hasn’t been completed and many supporting regulations are absent. The three laws mentioned overview the concepts of total emission control, discharge license, emission fees and so on. There is still need of technically specific and detailed regulations on the practices of monitoring, examination, assessment, rectification, etc.
Second, the local environmental protection authorities lack enforcement abilities. Mr. Guang Xia frankly admitted that most local governments have reached their limits and have no human resources and other administrative resources to implement the license system thoroughly. For example, few local governments have the technical and financial ability to carry out the continuous monitoring of pollutant emission of the enterprises in their administration areas. At present, local authorities have to accept the emission figures that are submitted by the enterprises. In other words, the authorities cannot get hold of the authentic and accurate figures on the total discharge amount, which is the very foundation of the license system.
It’s obvious that there is a long way to go if the government really wants to implement the discharge license system. Besides, some experts still have reservations relating to the cancellation of environmental assessment as a precondition. They argue that if the enterprises apply for all the approvals at the same time and finally fail at the environmental assessment, then the whole project has to stop and it will also result in waste.
