Congress urged to amend environmental law
February 28, 2007 | BY
clpstaffIncreasingly activist senior environmental official Pan Yue has urged the Chinese legislature to step up its efforts against pollution by amending the…
Increasingly activist senior environmental official Pan Yue has urged the Chinese legislature to step up its efforts against pollution by amending the 17-year-old environmental law.
“The government's refusal or failure to fulfill environmental responsibilities has seriously set back China's environmental protection efforts,” he said.
The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), of which Yue is deputy director, finds it difficult to restrict government actions because of the outdated law's limited focus on the actions of citizens and organizations.
“With inadequate laws, the government's attempt at responsibility in environmental protection has become a mere scrap of paper,” Pan told Xinhua.
Chinese environmental officials and media frequently rail against local authorities for rampant environmental violations and have called for serious punishments for negligent officials. In response, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee has announced that environmental protection will be an important criteria for assessing local officials' performance, beginning in 2007.
Pan said the environmental protection law should underscore the government's role in environmental protection and create harsher punishments.
Pan cited a lead poisoning incident and the arsenide pollution of the water supply of 80,000 people as two cases in support of his claim that, in the past year, “most of the environmental violations involved governments.”
The majority of China's rivers and lakes are polluted, and nearly half the ground water in urban areas is heavily polluted, according to investigations; of China's 222 drinkable water resources in 113 major cities, only 72% met national standards.
“The next 10 to 15 years is a crucial period for China's environmental protection cause. Governmental responsibility for the environment must be clarified in the law. This task should not be delayed,” Pan said.
Since 2004, Congress members have submitted nearly 70 motions and proposals on environmental legislation, with nearly half focusing on revising the current environmental protection law.
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