China Environmental Law

The new Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, who was the old Minister of SEPA, Zhou Shengxian, announced yesterday that setting up a law enforcement system of “iron and steel” is at the top of his agenda. A China Daily article reports as follows:

“The new ministry will have greater authority to crack down on environmental crime, and we will expand our enforcement and surveillance teams,” he said.

Regular meetings, and joint enforcement, surveillance and information sharing systems will be set up not only among environmental protection departments of all levels, but also with law enforcement and judicial bodies, Zhou said.

I’m not sure where the new authority Minister Zhou refers to is coming from, but the words are encouraging.

Wei Fusheng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a researcher with the Environmental Monitoring Center, sounded a note of caution that there simply may not be enough personnel and surveillance infrastructure to move beyond simply “monitoring environmental quality and the national key pollution sources” and actually address pollutant discharges impacting people’s health. 

But Zhou said the ministry will not be slack in its efforts to combat pollution.

The agenda for this year includes a conference on pollution treatment in the Songhua River, and meetings to tackle pollution in the Huaihe River, agricultural pollution in Zhejiang province and industrial pollution in Shanghai.

Actually that first agenda item sounds more “PowerPoint & Coffee break” than “Iron & Steel,” but the others may qualify.

Zhou also mentioned that “new ministry positions will be announced on Wednesday.”  We’ll keep you posted.