China’s lawmakers consider ways to deal with air pollution crisis
Print Edition
MAJOR revisions for China’s air pollution control law are under way, with the country planning harsher punishment for offenders, the bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, heard yesterday.
China’s current law dates back to stipulated in 1987 and was revised in 2000 to strengthen controls over the discharge of sulfur dioxide.
China’s air pollution is currently caused by a combination of smoke from burning coal and vehicle exhaust fumes, said Zhou Shengxian, the environmental protection minister, when explaining the draft amendment to lawmakers in Beijing, where it was being given its first reading.
“Air pollution problems in certain regions have become prominent and smoggy days are often seen, all of which demonstrate that the existing law cannot fit in the current situation,” said Zhou.
China has 244 million people licensed to drive cars, according to the Ministry of Public Security. There are 264 million civilian motor vehicles on roads at present, including 154 million automobiles. China currently has 15 percent of the world’s automobiles.
Beijing and eight of its neighboring cities were among the 10 Chinese cities with the worst air quality in the third quarter of 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in October.
It said the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region on average suffered from air pollution on 45 percent of days in the third quarter.
The new draft law will have the State Council’s environmental protection department and meteorological agency, as well as province-level governments in key air pollution control regions, establish a monitor and early-warning system for heavily polluted days. When a smoggy day is predicted, the province-level government in key areas should be informed.
Environmental protection departments and meteorological departments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as well as some large cities, should also establish the early-warning system for heavily polluted days in their own administrative regions.
Tackling heavily-polluted conditions shall be included in a local government’s emergency response plan, according to the draft, adding that governments at county level or above should stipulate a contingency plan for heavily-polluted days that should be made public.
Certain enterprises should be ordered to suspend or limit production, automobile use could be prohibited or limited, fireworks forbidden, demolition of buildings suspended and outdoor barbecues eliminated.
Artificial weather modification might be used and outdoor sports activities for kindergartens and schools could be canceled, the draft says.
Officials or public workers of local governments or organizations in charge of air pollution control who abuse power, neglect their duties or practice favoritism for gain, will be punished, the draft says.
Those found discharging air pollutants without getting a pollutant discharge permit, exceeding prescribed standards of airborne pollutants, shunning supervision by falsifying data or temporarily suspending production for dealing with on-the-spot inspections will be ordered to stop discharging pollutants, limit or suspend production, could face fines of up to a million yuan.
Enterprises which produce automobiles whose pollutant discharge exceeds prescribed standards will be ordered to make corrections. And automobiles which fail to meet the pollutant-discharge standards will be confiscated and destroyed.
An automobile owner whose car passes a pollutant discharge test by temporarily changing exhaust control equipment will be fined 5,000 yuan and the related vehicle maintenance workshops be fined between 20,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan.
Departments which falsify vehicle exhaust test results will be fined between 20,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan and have their illegal gains confiscated.
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