Others News
- Official urges legislature to hold gov'ts accountable for pollution
Date: 27-Feb-2007 Sources: (Xinhua Online)
A senior environmental official on Monday urged China's legislature to amend its 17-year-old environmental law in order to hold government officials accountable for pollution.
'The government's refusal or failure to fulfill environmental responsibilities has seriously set back China's environmental protection efforts,' said Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
Local governments can often escape punishment for actions that result in serious pollution as China's current law on environmental protection mainly targets the behaviors of citizens and organizations, and its ability to restrict government behavior is limited.
'With insufficient laws, the government's responsibility in environmental protection has become a mere scrap of paper,' Pan said in an interview with Xinhua ahead of the 'two sessions' - the annual meetings of China's top legislature and top political advisory body.
Chinese environmental officials and media have frequently lambasted local authorities for rampant environmental violations and called for serious punishments for negligent officials.
To counter local protectionism, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee has announced that environmental protection will be an important index for assessing local officials' performance starting from 2007.
Pan said the environmental protection law should specify and emphasize the government's responsibility in environmental protection and impose harsher punishments.
He referred to the lead poisoning incident in Gansu Province and arsenide pollution in Hunan Province last year, saying those accidents showed that 'most of the environmental violations involved governments'.
The lead poisoning, which was discovered last April in Huixian County and caused by a local factory, resulted in around 250 children aged under 14 being hospitalized and hundreds more were found to have an excessive amount of lead in their blood.
The other scare was caused by two factories in Yueyang of Hunan Province, which were releasing waste water with a high concentration of arsenide into the Xinqiang River, affecting the water supply of 80,000 residents in the lower reaches.
Pan said the government's refusal to carry out its duty, interference in environmental law enforcement and decisions that have resulted in a negative impact on the environment are the main reasons for China's serious environmental problems.
Pan said that since 2004, NPC deputies and CPPCC members had submitted nearly 70 motions and proposals on environmental legislation, with almost half focusing on the revision of the current environmental protection law.
'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.
Investigations have shown that most of China's rivers and lakes are polluted. Almost half the ground water in urban areas is heavily polluted.
Of 222 drinkable water resources in 113 major Chinese cities, only 72 percent reached national standards.
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