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On January 29th, 2021, the State Council of China announced the approval of the Regulations on Management of Pollutant Discharge Permit (Decree No. 736 of the State Council) [1] and published the Regulations. Enterprises, institutions, and other manufacturers or operators that subject to the pollutant discharge permission management, shall discharge pollutants in accordance with the requirements of the permit, and must not discharge without permit. The Regulations are scheduled to enter into effect on March 1st, 2021.
The scope of units subject to pollutant discharge permission management, implementation steps, and management category list shall be drafted by the MEE and approved by the State Council before being issued for implementation. And the comments from relevant administrations, industry associations, enterprises, institutes, and the public shall be solicited for the formulation of the scope, implementation steps, and management category list. According to factors such as the amount of pollutants generated, the amount of emissions, the degree of impact on the environment, etc., key management or simplified management will be applied to the discharge units.
The application and approval procedures are specified in the Regulations. A pollutant discharging unit shall apply for the permit from the administration of ecology and environment of the local people's government at or above the municipal level where its manufacturing or operation site is located. The application form can be submitted through the National Pollutant Discharge Permit Management Information Platform, or by letter or other means. The review period for the simplified management and key management unit is 20 and 30 days respectively. In the Regulations, the approval requirements of a pollutant discharge permit and the specific content that should be recorded in the permit are also specified.
Responsibilities of pollutant discharge units are strengthened in the Regulations. The discharge units shall carry out self-monitoring in accordance with the provisions of the pollutant discharge permit and relevant standards and regulations, and save the original monitoring records. Units subject to key management shall also install, use and maintain automatic pollutant discharge monitoring equipment, and network with the monitoring system of the administration. In addition, pollutant discharge units shall establish the ledger record system for environmental management, and publicize pollutant discharge information on the information platform.
MEE will take various supervision and inspection measures to ensure pollutant discharge units comply with the requirements of the Regulations, including incorporating the inspection of pollution discharge permit enforcement into the annual enforcement action plan, reviewing the pollutant discharge volume and concentration of the unit through the information platform and on-site monitoring, and supervising and inspecting whether the operation and maintenance of the pollution prevention and control facilities of the pollutant discharge unit complying with the provisions of the pollution discharge permit.
