4th Session of 13th NPC Standing Committee Prioritizes Finalization of Environmental Protection Legislation

1.Zhanshu Li highlighted important pending environmental protection regulations/standards in the Standing Committee, urging an acceleration of the legislative process. 2.The List of Toxic and Harmful Air Pollutants to be expected in 2018 3.China will focus on building a Pollutants Emission Permit System by 2020

The 4^th session of the 13^th National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee convened on July 9^th and 10^th, a month ahead of schedule. The early meeting is designed to follow State Council’s recent publication of the “Notice of Three-year Plan on Defending the Blue Sky”. (Previous CL News). During the meeting, Mr. Zhanshu Li, the Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee 4^th Session outlines current progress and offered some explanations on delays in promulgation of new legislation.

The Air Pollution Prevention Law (大气污染防治法) has been implemented since Jan 1, 2016, although some ancillary regulations are still missing. Mr. Zhanshu Li summarized the pending regulations/standards which will be implemented in future to support The Air Pollution Prevention Law:

	The Air Pollution Prevention Law	Status Quo
Article 19	Measures and Implementation of pollutants emission permit shall be prescribed by the State Council	MEP(Current MEE) published the Measures of the Management on Pollutants Emission Permit (Trial) on Jan 10, 2018 which took effect immediately
Article 37	Prohibited to import, sell and burn petroleum coke that doesn’t meet the quality standards	Quality standards are in absence
Article 46	Industrial coating companies should use coatings with low VOC contents	Related limitation standards are in absence
Article 58	Establish an environmental protection recall system for motor vehicles and non-road mobile machinery.	The system is in absence
Article 78	Publish a list of toxic and harmful air pollutants and implement risk management	The List is in absence

Article 19 emphasizes State Council’s responsibility to implement the pollutants emission permit. Compared to the trial measures published by MEP, the policy’s strength will be increased from departmental regulation to national law. In addition to VOC management the Pollution Emission Permit System is a top priority task for policymakers.

Accelerating the development of support regulations and standards is also a key issue:

MEE to publish the List of Toxic and Harmful Air Pollutants by end of 2018
The State Council to formulate Regulations on the Administration of Pollution Emission Permit by end of 2019
Pollution Emission Permit system to be the core system in fixed source environmental management, achieving” one-permit” management by 2020.

In the last 20 days China has taken 2 significant steps forward in tackling its environmental issues head on, the first is the release of its environmental protection roadmap for the next 3 years “Three-year Plan on Defending the Blue Sky” and the second was detailed in the July 9th and 10th meeting of the NPC Standing Committee which sorted current circumstances and blueprinted legislative reform plans in following years.