The environmental impact assessment act, as amended by the seventh meeting of the standing committee of the thirteenth national people's congress, was promulgated on 29 december 2018, removing the administrative authorization for the evaluation of the environmental impact of construction projects, and amending articles 19, 20, 28 and 32. In recent daysMinistry of ecologyPreparation by the director of the division of environmental assessment of the background and enhanced environmental impact reports (tables) on the elimination of accreditation of environmental evaluation bodiesOversight managementThe legal provisions and follow-up provided answers to questions from journalists。
Question: what was the background to the revision of the environmental impact assessment act to eliminate eia qualification management?
Response: the party's central and state council attaches great importance to the transformation of government functions, and the reform of “de-regulation” as an important element in the overall deepening of reforms is being pursued on an ongoing basis. In september 2017, the standing committee of the state council recommended the removal of the administrative authorization for the accreditation of environmental evaluation bodies and the submission of the law to the standing committee of the national people's congress in accordance with statutory procedures. On 29 december 2018, the seventh meeting of the standing committee of the thirteenth national people's congress took a decision to amend the environmental impact assessment act, which was published on the same day。
The eva management programme, which has been in place for many years, has played an important role in ensuring the quality of eea documentation, effectively preventing environmental pollution and ecological damage, and enhancing the effectiveness of eea. It has created a professional and technical team with high operational capacity and has developed a market for eea with a certain degree of self-regulation. In the new context of the overall deepening of the reform of “regulator”, the reform of qualifications management has become well known, as ex post facto regulation in such matters as the technical clearance of environmental assessments has become more intensive and the conditions for prior access have gradually matured. The revised law on environmental impact assessment no longer obliges eias to prepare environmental impact reports (forms) for construction projects by qualified eias, and provides that the construction unit may commission technical units to prepare environmental impact reports (forms) for them, if it has the corresponding technical capacity, or itself, which will help to boost market dynamism, increase the level and awareness of eia technical services through fuller market competition, and further reduce the burden on enterprises and promote physical economic development。
Q: we note that the change in the environmental impact assessment act which changed the subject of responsibility for the eea document from an eea to a construction unit, how is this change viewed
One of the salient features of the revised environmental impact assessment act is that the building unit is primarily responsible for the environmental impact report (table) of its construction project. For a long time, eea, as the subject of the eea document, has indirectly caused construction units to focus only on eea approval, without concern for eea content and implementation, and there have been instances of unauthorized changes in project construction, “conformity in approval” and non-implementation of “three simultaneous” irregularities. In order to ensure that construction units are aware of their environmental responsibilities, and in accordance with the principle of who is responsible for benefiting from them, the amended law specifies that the construction units are responsible for the contents and conclusions of the environmental impact reports (tables) of their construction projects and that the technical units are responsible accordingly. This will enable the construction unit to focus on the preparation of the environmental assessment document, the design and implementation of the corresponding eco-environmental response, from being passive “i want to do” to being proactive “i want to do”, to be truly accountable, and to select technical units on the basis of merit in the quality of the environmental assessment, to phase out irresponsible, crude and abusive technical units, and to clean up and regulate the business market。
Q: does the removal of eia mean that eia management has been relaxed and what are the new regulatory provisions of the revised eia act
Response: the elimination of pre-privileged access to the environmental impact report (table) compilers does not mean that, on the contrary, the environmental impact assessment act provides for stricter regulations for supervision and accountability, and provides for stronger regulatory weapons at all levels of the ecological sector, which will effectively deter violations。
One is a massive reinforcementLegal liabilityThe enforcement unit and personnel are subject to a double penalty. In case of serious quality problems, construction units will be fined between $500,000 and $2 million and those responsible between $50,000 and $200,000; technical units will be fined from one to three times more than three to five times, and illegal proceeds will be confiscated and, in serious cases, prohibited from practising their profession; and staff members will be subject to a five-year ban on practising their profession, which will also result in criminal liability in accordance with the law and will be banned for life。
Second, the operationalization of the relevant tests and penalties has been improved by refining the specific cases of “serious quality problems” in environmental impact reports (tables) in three areas, namely, that of manifestly false basic information, material defects, omissions or misrepresentations, and incorrect or unreasonable findings of environmental impact assessments, and that the criteria are clearer and contribute to better regulation at all levels of the ecological sector。
Thirdly, the quality assessment of the environmental assessment document should be strengthened, with a clear requirement that all eco-environmental authorities at the municipal level and above should monitor and monitor the management and quality evaluation of the environmental impact reports (tables) prepared for construction projects。
The fourth is the implementation of credit management, whereby the eco-environmental authorities responsible for approving environmental impact reports (tables) for construction projects are required by law to record in the social integrity files relevant information on violations of the law by the author unit, the moderator and the chief compiler, and to make it available to the public on the national credit information-sharing platform and the national corporate credit information system, which will create a strong deterrent to joint discipline。
Question: what will the ministry of eco-environment focus on in the next step in regulating the preparation and regulation of environmental impact reports
Response: in order to ensure that the quality of the eea is not reduced after the eea has been eliminated, and that its role in the prevention of environmental pollution and ecological damage is not diminished, the ministry will expedite the development of the relevant management documents and will further strengthen post-facto controls。
The first was the recent publication of the bulletin (temporary) on the elimination of the requirements for follow-up work related to the qualifications of qualifications for environmental impact assessment in construction projects, which provides for interim requirements for the transition period. These include, inter alia, a clear suspension of the implementation of the original qualification management system, the de-admissibility of applications and the conduct of qualification review-related matters; the submission of technical capacity requirements for environmental impact reporting units and personnel, a clear “backtrack” for “de-coupled” units, with environmental impact assessment engineers acting as facilitators and lead staff for the time being; and clarification of the principles for the implementation of pre-existing administrative processing decisions and supervisory responsibilities of management, as well as regulation of the process of preparation of the eia document。
The second is to expedite the preparation of supporting documents such as environmental impact reports (tables) for construction projects, guidelines for capacity-building, preparation units and regulations for the public management of credit information for personnel, to construct a management system that is of a quality-centred, credit-based, publicly accessible and regulatoryly guaranteed, to further regulate the preparation of environmental impact reports (tables), to safeguard the quality of production and to maintain market order for ees services。
Thirdly, the technical review of environmental assessment documents should be further strengthened, on a daily basis, with the periodic review of reports (tables) approved throughout the country by means of large-scale data and intelligence, the strengthening of the monitoring of priority units and sectors, and the imposition of severe penalties on those found to have committed violations. The establishment of a unified national credit platform for environmental impact assessment, the implementation of credit management requirements and the creation of a virtuous market order for the benefit of those who believe and those who fail to do so。
