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MEP’s Organizational Structure Changed

Two departments abolished, three established There will be more vertical management in law enforcement

Jun 5th every year is the World Environment Day set by UN Environment Program (UNEP) since 1972. On June 5th this year, China Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) launched its new official website and revealed some significant reforms to the organizational structure of MEP.

Three new departments established

The structure of the new official website indicates that two departments are abolished, which are the department of pollution prevention and treatment and the department of pollutants emission amount control. They are replaced by three newly established departments, which are the department of water environmental management, the department of air environmental management and the department of soil environmental management, corresponding to three action plans on the water, air and soil pollution (also called “water 10”, “air 10” and “soil 10”).

Although MEP announced the change to organizational structure this March, it wasn’t until recently that MEP specified the detailed function and responsibilities of the new departments on the website. It’s not difficult to tell from the names of the departments that the new structure is more target-oriented, given the fact that the State Council has released the “water 10”, “air 10” and “soil 10” successively. The widely-covered functions of the two abolished departments were based on the total emission control and therefore made it hard to focus on the pollution from one specific aspect. Take the department of pollutants emission amount control for example. It was responsible for the management of the pollution of water, air, urban land, noise, light, odor, solid waste, chemical, automobiles and the ocean. It was almost impossible for a single department to spare enough staff and resources on each area.

Also there were many overlaps of the responsibilities in these two departments. For example, there was the division of control on total amount of water pollutants and the division of control on total amount of air pollutants under the department of pollutants emission amount control. While the department of pollution prevention and treatment had the division of air and noise pollution prevention and treatment and the division of pollution on major rivers and lakes. As a result, two departments often had overlapping responsibilities on the same issue during law enforcement. This redundancy wasted time, money, human power and other enforcement resources.

Now with the new structure launched, each new department has a major focus and can concentrate their resources onto more specific targets.

More vertical management on law enforcement

One of the biggest obstacles during the law enforcement activities of environmental protection authorities is the administrative management system. For instance, in the current legal system of China, the local environmental protection authorities are under the management of both local governments and the environmental protection authorities above them. For professional work, they follow the orders of environmental protection authorities above them; while for budget and personnel management, they are under the charge of the local governments. These bureaucratic handicaps lower the efficiency of law enforcement greatly.

Therefore, MEP plans to begin vertical management on the law enforcement of the local environmental protection authorities below the provincial level. However, this will involve a huge amount of administrative design and adjustments, accompanied with obvious debate and friction. Some pilot provinces will be chosen to trial the new structural management later this year and the whole reform is expected to be completed in 2 or 3 years.

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