Chinese legislature revising law to tackle smog

Major revisions for China's air pollution control laws began on Monday as the country plans harsher punishment for offenders.

A draft amendment to the air pollution prevention and control law was submitted to China's top legislature for a first reading at the start of the bimonthly session Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress. The meeting will last from Monday to Sunday.

China's current air pollution prevention and control law was stipulated in 1987. It was revised in 2000 to strengthen control on the discharge of sulfur dioxide and the law, since then, has been playing an important role in preventing and controlling pollution caused by coal burning.

While the current law has seven chapters and 66 clauses, the draft law contains eight chapters and 100 clauses.

The draft amendment adds a new chapter on dealing with smoggy days, stipulating that the country should establish a monitoring and early-warning system for heavily-polluted days.

With the country's rapid economic and social development and the striking increase in the amount of automobiles, China's air pollution is currently caused by a combination of smoke from burning coal and vehicle exhaust, said Zhou Shengxian, minister of environmental protection, when explaining the draft amendment to lawmakers on Monday.

"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 (MPS) in November.

There are 264 million civil motor vehicles on roads as of present, including 154 million automobiles, next only to the United States. Now China has 15 percent of total automobiles in the world.

Meanwhile, air pollution has been a very thorny issue grabbing tremendous social attention.

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.

The ministry said the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region on average suffered from air pollution on 45 percent of the days in the third quarter.

EARLY WARNING AND CONTINGENCY PLAN FOR SMOGGY DAYS

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 weather shall be included in 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. And the contingency plan should be made public.

When an early warning is issued, governments at county level or above shall implement their contingency plans according to the severity level of the early warning.

According to the needs for tackling air pollution, certain enterprises should be ordered to suspend or limit production, automobile use could be prohibited or limited, igniting 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, according to the draft.

After a local government's contingency plan is implemented, it shall evaluate the implementation of the plan in a timely manner, so as to further revise and perfect the contingency plan.

HARSHER PENALTIES

Officials or public workers of local government or organizations in charge of air pollution control who abuse power, neglect their duties or practice favoritism for personal gain, shall be punished according to the Environmental Protection Law and the Civil Servant Law, 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, and be fined between no less than 100,000 yuan (about 16,340 US dollars) to no more than one million yuan by environmental protection departments of local governments at county level or above.

If the circumstances are serious, law violators will be ordered to close down.

If enterprises are found violating any of the regulations and refuse to make corrections police are entitled to detain the responsible persons, according to the draft amendment.

Enterprises which produce automobiles whose pollutant discharge exceeds prescribed standards will be ordered to make corrections by the environmental protection departments at province-level or above. Illegal profits from such practices will be confiscated and a fine amounting to 1-3 times of the commodity cost will be leveraged, it said.

Automobiles which fail to meet the pollutant-discharge standards will be confiscated and destroyed.

Enterprises which sell or import automobiles whose pollutant discharge exceeds prescribed standards will have illegal profits confiscated and be fined between 1-3 times the commodity cost. 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 vehicle exhaust control equipment will be fined 5,000 yuan and the related vehicle maintenance factories will 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. If the department refuses to make a correction, its professional qualification will be revoked.

Any organizations, which burn asphalt, rubber, plastic, leather and rubbish in the population-concentrated areas, will be ordered to make correction and fined between 10,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. For individuals, the fine will be 500 to 50,000 yuan.