Tough amendments to China's environment law submitted for NPC approval
Enhanced legislation put before Nation People's Conference as Party shifts focus from growth at all costs to environmental protection
Amendments to China’s 1989 environmental protection law that will mean stiffer punishments for polluters have been submitted to the country’s parliament for deliberation, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Monday.
The National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, will consider the amendments during its latest bi-monthly session, which runs until Thursday, Xinhua said.
The first change to the legislation in 25 years will give legal backing to Beijing’s newly declared war on pollution and formalise a pledge made last year to abandon a decades-old growth-at-all-costs economic model that has contaminated much of China’s water, skies and soil.
The amendments, now in their fourth draft, are expected to enshrine environmental protection as the overriding priority of the Chinese government, and will also include provisions to help Beijing impose rules on powerful industrial interests.
The current draft gives environmental bureaus the power to close down and confiscate polluting equipment, and will also allow company bosses to be detained for up to 15 days if they fail to submit environmental impact assessments or refuse to comply with orders to suspend production, Xinhua said.
