False Environmental Impact Assessment Will Be Severely Punished | CBCGDF Submitted Legislative Recommendations to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment
2020/9/16 17:52:00 本站

Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment publicly solicited opinions on the "Opinions on Severely Punishing Falsification and Improving the Quality of Environmental Impact Assessment (Draft for Comment)". China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) Legal Working Committee attached great importance to it, and after careful research, put forward the following recommendations:

 

Overall recommendations

 

1. The "Opinions" should add provisions for EIA types other than construction projects

 

According to the "Environmental Impact Assessment Law", environmental impact assessment is mainly divided into two types: planning environmental impact assessment and construction project environmental impact assessment, and there is another category, the more special one is marine environmental impact assessment.

 

On the whole, the "Opinions" mainly made many provisions on environmental impact assessment of construction projects, but basically did not involve planning environmental impact assessment, and even the marine EIA did not have specific regulations. Therefore, it is recommended that the "Opinions" add provisions on planning EIA and marine EIA related content.

 

2. It is recommended to add provisions on public participation in the "Opinions"

 

According to the "Environmental Impact Assessment Law", planning EIAs and EIAs of major projects involving public interests and a large number of people affected should hold demonstration meetings and hearings to solicit opinions from relevant units and the public. This is a very important way for public participation, and it is also a very important way to ensure that the environmental impact assessment document can withstand the test of history and the people, but this "Opinions" does not mention this aspect.

 

3. Make clear regulations on the phenomenon of reducing environmental impact assessment

 

Regarding the obvious disguise in the management of EIA, or the phenomenon of directly lowering the EIA level, for example, the EIA report should have been made, but it has been simplified to make the EIA report form. Clear and prohibitive regulations and limitation of responsibilities should be made in a targeted manner to prevent this kind of problem from minimizing the incident in the management of EIA.

 

4. The construction unit that prepares its own environmental impact assessment documents shall bear the main responsibility

 

Starting from the current management of environmental impact assessment, since the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has cancelled the management requirements for EIA qualifications, construction units can compile EIA reports by themselves as long as they have the ability to compile EIA reports. There is no need to hire other agencies. This led to the emergence of "self-assessment". However, this aspect is basically not mentioned in this "Opinions". It is recommended that the "Opinions" provide more detailed regulations on the main responsibility of the construction unit, including in the process of EIA, what legal responsibilities should be borne and how to bear responsibilities in the event of fraud and other illegal activities in the process of EIA.

 

5. Increase the application of the credit system in the field of environmental impact assessment

 

According to the requirements of the "Environmental Impact Assessment Law": the information of construction units, EIA units, etc. that violated the law should be recorded in the social integrity file, and it is included in the National Credit Information Sharing Platform and the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System to be announced to the public. Although credit information is mentioned in the "Opinions", it is not clearly stated as these two systems. Therefore, the provisions of the "Opinions" on specific credit systems should be consistent with the upper law, only carry out credit disclosure in accordance with the two platforms stipulated in the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, to increase the application of the credit system in the EIA field and expand the influence of the credit system on the effect of EIA supervision, it is not suitable to create new systems that are not well known to the public.

 

6. Provisions on marine environmental impact assessment reports should be added

 

For a long time, marine EIA is mainly regulated by the Marine Environmental Protection Law. However, after the reform of national institutions, the responsibility of monitoring the marine environment has now been transferred to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and many changes have taken place in the management system and management methods. The approval of marine EIA reports is naturally also in charge of the MEE. However, this series of new regulations are not highlighted in this "Opinions". In practice, marine EIA issues are particularly prominent, and management is very lax, such as the EIA fraud incident of the Shenzhen Bay Dredging Project. Once marine projects are completed, they will inevitably have certain impacts on marine life and the surrounding ecological environment, some of which are even irreversible. Therefore, marine environmental impact assessment should particularly strengthen the assessment of content related to biodiversity.


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/13789.html


By / Maggie


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