China Environmental Law

As part of our continuing look at the newly amended Energy Conservation Law, we’ll review today those provisions which address the transportation and public (or governmental) sectors. 

Transportation

With respect to the transportation sector, the law basically punted. It encourages the development of regulations and provides that the State Council (and its relevant departments) shall

guide and promote coordinated development and efficient connection of various transportation methods, optimize the transportation structure and build up a comprehensive energy-saving transportation system (Article 42),

strengthen organization and administration of communications and transportation, guide road, waterway and air transport enterprises in improving the organization and intensification level of transportation in order to improve energy utilization efficiency. (Article 44),

and

formulate the standards for limits on fuel consumption by commercial transport vehicles or ships (article 46).

The “development, production and use of energy-saving environmentally-friendly cars, motorcycles, railway locomotives, ships and other transportation vehicles” is encouraged (Article 45) by the State, as is the “development and popularization of the use of clean fuel and oil substitute fuel for transportation tools.”  We will address fuel efficiency and clean fuel standards in a subsequent post.

Local governments are required (Article 43) to “give priority to” the development, expansion and “perfection” of public transport service systems and to “encourage the use of non-motorized vehicles.”

Public Sector

The public sector (or “public organizations”), pursuant to the Energy Conservation Law, is defined (Article 47) to include “State organs, public-service institutions and group organizations that totally or partially use public financial capital.” Unfortunately, “public financial capital” is not defined; does a loan from a state-owned bank count as “public financial capital?”

Public organizations “shall practice strict frugality, curb waste, . . . lead in the use of energy-saving products and equipment, and improve energy utilization efficiency.” The government agency affairs departments at each level of government “at or above the county level” shall, for all public organizations within their jurisdiction

develop plans for energy conservation, including energy conservation  plans for existing buildings (Article 48), and

formulate quotas on public organization energy consumption, and the public financial departments shall formulate standards for energy consumption expenditures according to those quotas. (Article 49).

Public organizations should:

• strengthen administration of the measurement and monitoring of energy consumption and submit (to the government agency affairs department) the report on energy consumption status for the previous year (Article 49),
• development annual targets for energy conservation and plans to achieve the targets (Article 49),
• arrange energy audits pursuant to relevant rules and take measures for improving energy use efficiency according to the audit results (Article 50), and
• when purchasing energy-using products and equipment, give priority to purchasing products and equipment included in the list of energy-saving products and equipment for government procurement (Article 51)

The list of energy-saving products and equipment for government procurement referred to in the last bullet point “shall be formulated and promulgated by the department of the people’s government at or above the provincial level in charge of supervision and administration of government procurement” (Article 51). We will bring you up to date on the status of this energy-saving products and equipment catalogue in a later post.

As you can see, there’s not much meat here; most of the action will happen at the regulatory level, and we will try to keep you abreast of those developments.