Recent Environmental Law and Public Participation News
One year later, Shenyang’s open information system due for further upgrades (Google translation)
Officials of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, recently revealed plans to institute additional upgrades to the city’s open information system. Currently, the city’s information portals offer over half a million documents from 1981 to present day for public access, along with public notification systems and community forums. The city’s information website averaged 7200 visits a day over the past year, with many Shenyang residents praising the portal for making access to administrative regulations and documents a much easier quest than before. (Source: Liaoning Daily)
14 Qingdao enterprises publish mandatory clean production environmental reports (Google translation)
Fourteen individual enterprises in Qingdao’s Chengyang district released their annual clean production reports, publicizing important pollution and energy use information to the public for their industrial activities in the previous year. The companies, which engage in highly-polluting industries such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and electroplating, were forced by the Chengyang Environmental Protection Bureau to undertake mandatory audits in a bid to make inform the public, keep the playing field level, and improve their social reputation among the city’s residents. (Source: Chengyang EPB)
Shenzhen law to explore emissions trading system (Google translation)
The new draft “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Environmental Protection Ordinance” is set to test an emissions trading scheme to help promote energy conservation and pollution reduction in the bustling economic region. Since last year, Shenzhen authorities have dealt with 1181 cases of environmental law, doling out fines totaling over 27 million RMB. (Source: Legal Daily)
Jiangxi Province develops new lake protection plan (Google translation)
Jiangxi officials unveiled a new plan to help protect the region’s lakes and water resources last week in response to the rising threat of water pollution from local industry. The plan is a seven-pronged approach that calls for enhanced sewage treatment, clean production requirements, and lake water cleanup. (Source: People’s Daily)
Wang Canfa: Environmental Protection Bureaus need enforcement powers (Google translation)
Renowned legal scholar Wang Canfa, in an interview with Sina, argues for the expansion of enforcement powers to local environmental bureaus. The need to apply for court enforcement heavily curtails the effectiveness of environmental officials, the professor argues, and more coercive power is needed if the EPB is to get polluters to respond quickly. (Source: Sina)
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