opinions of the state council on strengthening the focus of environmental protection work

opinions of the state council on strengthening the focus of environmental protection work

Guo Fa [2011] No.35　　

People’s governments of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, ministries and commissions and institutions directly under the State Council:
　　　 Over the years, China has actively implemented the strategy of sustainable development, placed environmental protection in an important strategic position, and constantly intensified efforts to solve environmental problems, and achieved remarkable results. However, due to the unreasonable industrial structure and layout, the low level of pollution prevention and control, and the imperfect environmental supervision system, the environmental protection situation is still very grim. In order to thoroughly implement Scientific Outlook on Development, accelerate the transformation of economic development mode and improve the level of ecological civilization construction, we hereby put forward the following opinions on strengthening the key work of environmental protection:
　　　 First, comprehensively improve the level of supervision and management of environmental protection
　　　 (1) Strictly implement the environmental impact assessment system.All key river basins, regional development and industry development plans and construction projects that should be assessed according to law must strictly implement the environmental impact assessment procedures, and take the total discharge control index of major pollutants as the precondition for the approval of environmental impact assessment of new reconstruction and expansion projects. The process of environmental impact assessment should be open and transparent, and fully solicit public opinions. Establish and improve the linkage mechanism between planning environmental impact assessment and construction project environmental impact assessment. Illegal acts such as starting construction without approval of environmental impact assessment documents, making major changes without authorization during construction, and putting into production without environmental protection acceptance should be investigated for the responsibility of management departments, related enterprises and personnel according to law.
　　　 (two) continue to strengthen the total emission reduction of major pollutants.Improve the statistical, monitoring and assessment system of emission reduction, and encourage all regions to implement total emission control of characteristic pollutants. Control the total amount of chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen emissions in papermaking, printing and dyeing and chemical industries. Strengthen the construction of sewage treatment facilities, sludge treatment and disposal facilities, sewage recycling facilities and landfill leachate treatment facilities. Upgrade the existing sewage treatment plant. Improve the urban sewage collection pipe network and promote the transformation of rain and sewage diversion. Strengthen the operation supervision of urban sewage and garbage treatment facilities. Control the total emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the power industry, continue to strengthen desulfurization of coal-fired power plants, comprehensively implement denitrification of coal-fired power plants, and build desulfurization and denitrification facilities simultaneously for new coal-fired units. The total amount of sulfur dioxide emissions in the steel industry will be controlled, and the treatment of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in cement, petrochemical and coal chemical industries will be strengthened. Piloting the total coal consumption control in key areas of joint prevention and control of air pollution. Carry out nitrogen oxide treatment of motor vehicle and ship exhaust. Improve environmental access and emission standards for key industries. Promote pollution reduction in agriculture and rural areas, and focus on pollution prevention and control of large-scale livestock and poultry breeding.
　　　 (3) Strengthen environmental law enforcement supervision.We will promptly promote the formulation and revision of relevant laws and regulations to provide a more complete and effective legal guarantee for environmental protection. Improve law enforcement procedures, standardize law enforcement behavior, and establish a law enforcement responsibility system. Strengthen the daily supervision and law enforcement inspection of environmental protection. We will continue to carry out special actions to rectify illegal sewage enterprises and protect people’s health and environmental protection, and conduct post-inspection on the implementation of environmental laws and regulations and the rectification of environmental problems. Establish an environmental supervision system for the whole process of construction projects and a rural and ecological environment supervision system. Improve the cross-administrative regional environmental law enforcement cooperation mechanism and departmental linkage law enforcement mechanism. Dispose of environmental pollution and ecological destruction events according to law. The implementation of river basins, regions, industries and other supervision systems. Interview local government leaders who are responsible for failing to complete environmental protection objectives and tasks or serious environmental emergencies, and implement rectification measures. Implement the extended producer responsibility system. Deepen the system of enterprise environmental supervisors and implement qualified management. Establish and improve the reporting system of environmental protection, widely implement information disclosure and strengthen social supervision of environmental protection.
　　　 (four) effectively prevent environmental risks and properly handle environmental emergencies.Improve the prevention-oriented environmental risk management system, implement environmental emergency classification, dynamic and whole-process management, and scientifically and properly handle environmental emergencies according to law. Build a more efficient environmental risk management and emergency rescue system and improve the ability of environmental emergency monitoring and disposal. Formulate feasible environmental emergency plans, equip with necessary emergency rescue materials and equipment, strengthen environmental emergency management, technical support and the construction of rescue teams, and organize regular training and drills. Carry out investigation and study on the environment and health of key river basins and regions. Do a good job in emergency handling of pollution incidents, timely and accurately release information, and reduce the loss of people’s lives and property and the damage to the ecological environment. Improve the accountability system, strictly implement the main responsibility of corporate environmental safety, and strengthen the environmental safety supervision responsibility of local governments.
　　　 Two, focus on solving outstanding environmental problems that affect scientific development and harm people’s health.
　　　 (5) Effectively strengthen the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution.Focus on the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution areas, industries and enterprises. Reasonably adjust the layout of enterprises involved in heavy metals, strictly implement the health protection distance, and resolutely prohibit new projects that increase the total discharge of heavy metal pollutants in key prevention and control areas. Strengthen the environmental supervision of heavy metal-related enterprises to ensure that the discharge reaches the standard. For heavy metal polluting enterprises that cause pollution, we will increase penalties and take rectification measures within a time limit. If they still fail to meet the requirements, they will be shut down and banned according to law. Standardize the recycling activities of waste electrical and electronic products, and build a recycling system for waste materials and a centralized processing park. Actively and properly handle the problems left over from the history of heavy metal pollution.
　　　 (6) Strict environmental management of chemicals.Sort out and evaluate the layout of chemical projects, and promote the scientific planning and rational layout of petroleum and chemical projects. Investigate environmental hazards of chemical production and operation enterprises, comprehensively rectify chemical enterprises along oceans, rivers and lakes, and strengthen safety and security measures. Take environmental risk assessment as an important part of the assessment of hazardous chemicals projects, improve the environmental access conditions and construction standards of chemical production, and scientifically determine and implement the environmental safety protection distance of chemical construction projects. Eliminate chemicals that are highly toxic, difficult to degrade and have high environmental hazards according to law, and restrict the production and use of chemicals with high environmental risks. Promote ecological design of industrial products. Improve the environmental management system in the whole process of chemicals. Strengthen the supervision and management of key industries that discharge persistent organic pollutants. Establish a lifelong accountability system for chemical environmental pollution responsibility and an administrative accountability system for the whole process.
　　　 (7) Ensuring nuclear and radiation safety.Focus on the operation of nuclear facilities, strengthen the safety review and evaluation of newly built and expanded nuclear facilities, and promote the decommissioning of old nuclear facilities and the treatment of radioactive waste. Strengthen safety management and radiation protection in the production, transportation and storage of nuclear materials and radioactive materials, and promote environmental protection of uranium mines and associated radioactive mines. Strengthen the management of radiation environment such as radioactive sources, radiation devices, high-voltage power transmission and transformation and mobile communication projects. Improve the nuclear and radiation safety evaluation methods, improve the radiation environment monitoring and supervision system, promote the construction of the national nuclear and radiation safety supervision technology research and development base, and build a supervision technology support platform.
　　　 (8) Deepen the comprehensive prevention and control of pollution in key areas.Strict division and management of drinking water source protection areas, regular water quality analysis, implementation of water source environmental improvement, restoration and construction projects, improve water quality compliance rate. Conduct groundwater pollution investigation, risk assessment and remediation demonstration. Continue to promote the prevention and control of water pollution in key river basins and improve the assessment mechanism. Strengthen pollution control in Poyang Lake, Dongting Lake and Hongze Lake. Strengthen the protection of lakes with good water quality or fragile ecology. It is forbidden to carry out reclamation activities in places that may cause serious ecological imbalance, strengthen pollution control of rivers entering the sea and supervision and management of sewage outlets entering the sea, and focus on improving the environmental quality of the Bohai Sea and the estuaries such as the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Pearl River. Revise ambient air quality standards, increase air pollutant monitoring indicators, and improve environmental quality evaluation methods. Improve the joint prevention and control mechanism of air pollution in key areas, implement coordinated control of various pollutants, and strictly control the emission of volatile organic pollutants. Strengthen the control of odor, noise and cooking fume pollution. Intensify the harmless treatment of municipal solid waste. Strengthen the prevention and control of industrial solid waste pollution and strengthen the management of hazardous waste and medical waste. If the polluted site is developed and utilized again, environmental assessment and harmless treatment should be carried out. Implement mandatory cleaner production audit for key enterprises. We will promote environmental performance evaluation, a polluting enterprise, and strictly check the environmental protection of listed enterprises. In-depth development of urban environmental comprehensive improvement and environmental protection model city creation activities.
　　　 (9) Vigorously develop the environmental protection industry.Increase policy support and expand the market demand of environmental protection industry. Encourage the establishment of environmental protection industry development funds through multiple channels and broaden the financing channels for environmental protection industry development. Implement research and development and application of advanced and applicable technologies for environmental protection, and major environmental protection technology and equipment and product industrialization demonstration projects. Focus on the development of environmental services such as socialized operation of environmental protection facilities, environmental consultation, environmental supervision, engineering technology design, certification and evaluation. Encourage the use of environmental labels, environmental certification and green printing products. Carry out technical research on pollution reduction and implement major scientific and technological projects such as water pollution control and treatment. Formulate statistical standards for environmental protection industry. Strengthen the study of environmental benchmarks and promote the construction of national key laboratories of environmental protection and engineering technology centers. Strengthen the construction of environmental disciplines and specialties in colleges and universities.
　　　 (10) Accelerate rural environmental protection.Implement the target responsibility system for comprehensive improvement of rural environment. Deepen the policy of "promoting governance with awards" and "replacing compensation with awards", expand the scope of contiguous remediation, focus on remediation of villages and market towns with outstanding environmental problems, and focus on remediation of rural soil and drinking water source pollution. Continue to carry out soil environmental investigation and carry out pilot demonstration of soil pollution control and restoration. Promote the extension of environmental protection infrastructure and services to rural areas, and strengthen the construction of rural domestic garbage and sewage treatment facilities. Develop ecological agriculture and organic agriculture, scientifically use chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural films, and effectively reduce non-point source pollution. Strict management of crop straw burning ban, and promote the resource utilization of agricultural production waste. Strengthen the harmless treatment of human and animal manure and pesticide packaging in rural areas. Strengthen pollution prevention and control of industrial and mining enterprises in rural areas to prevent pollution from transferring to rural areas. Carry out agricultural and rural environmental statistics.
　　　 (eleven) increase the intensity of ecological protection.The state formulates environmental functional zoning, delineates ecological red lines in important ecological functional areas, sensitive areas of land and marine ecological environment, fragile areas and other areas, and formulates corresponding environmental standards and policies for various main functional areas respectively. Strengthen the ecological environment protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau ecological barrier, the Loess Plateau-Sichuan-Yunnan ecological barrier, the northeast forest belt, the northern sand control belt and the southern hilly and mountainous areas, as well as important river systems. Promote ecological restoration and let important ecosystems such as rivers and lakes recuperate. Strengthen biodiversity protection, establish biodiversity monitoring, evaluation and early warning system and biological genetic resources acquisition and benefit sharing system to effectively prevent the loss and loss of species resources. Strengthen the comprehensive management of nature reserves. Carry out ecosystem status assessment. Strengthen ecological protection in the development of minerals, hydropower, tourism resources and transportation infrastructure. We will promote the pilot project of ecological civilization construction and further carry out ecological demonstration activities.
　　　 Third, reform and innovation of environmental protection system and mechanism
　　　 (12) Continue to promote the historic transformation of environmental protection.Adhere to protection in development and development in protection, constantly strengthen and comprehensively use laws, economy, technology and necessary administrative means, take reform and innovation as the driving force, actively explore new ways of environmental protection with low cost, good benefit, low emission and sustainability, and establish a macro-strategic system of environmental protection, a comprehensive and efficient pollution prevention and control system, a sound environmental quality evaluation system, a sound system of environmental protection laws, regulations, policies, scientific and technological standards, and a complete system of environmental management and law enforcement and supervision that is suitable for China’s national conditions.
　　　 (thirteen) the implementation of economic policies conducive to environmental protection.Environmental protection should be included in the budgets of fiscal years at all levels and investment should be gradually increased. Timely increase the funding arrangements for environmental protection capacity building at the same level. Increase investment in water pollution prevention and control in key river basins, and improve the management measures for special funds for water pollution prevention and control in key river basins. We will improve the central financial transfer payment system and increase the transfer payment for environmental protection in the central and western regions, ethnic autonomous areas and key ecological function areas. Accelerate the establishment of ecological compensation mechanism and national special funds for ecological compensation and expand the scope of ecological compensation. Actively promote the reform of environmental taxes and fees and study the introduction of environmental protection tax. Enterprises that produce vehicle fuel that meets the standards of the next stage will be given preferential treatment in consumption tax policy. Formulate and improve the comprehensive list of environmental protection. For products with "high pollution and high environmental risk", study and adjust import and export tariff policies. Support qualified enterprises to issue bonds for environmental protection projects. Increase credit support for enterprises and projects that meet environmental protection requirements and credit principles. Establish a credit evaluation system for corporate environmental behavior. We will improve the environmental pollution liability insurance system and carry out pilot projects of compulsory liability insurance for environmental pollution. Strictly implement the electricity price policy of flue gas desulfurization in coal-fired power plants and formulate the electricity price policy of denitrification. Policy support will be given to renewable energy power generation, waste heat power generation and garbage incineration power generation. Differential electricity prices will be implemented for industries with high energy consumption and high pollution, and preferential policies will be implemented for encouraged enterprises such as sewage treatment, sludge harmless treatment facilities, desulfurization and denitrification facilities and garbage treatment facilities in non-power industries. In accordance with the requirements of harmless disposal of sludge, garbage and medical waste, we will improve the charging standards and promote the reform of collection methods.Carry out the pollutant discharge permit system, carry out the pilot project of paid use and trading of emission rights, establish the national emission trading center and develop the emission trading market.
　　　 (14) continuously enhance the ability of environmental protection.We will comprehensively promote the standardization of environmental protection capabilities such as monitoring, supervision, education and information. Improve the national key monitoring points and automatic monitoring networks for air quality, key river basins, groundwater and agricultural products producing areas in cities above prefecture level, expand the monitoring scope and build a national environmental monitoring network. Promote the construction and application of environmental special satellites, and improve remote sensing monitoring capabilities. Strengthen the construction, supervision and management, operation and maintenance of automatic monitoring system for pollution sources. Carry out the national environmental publicity and education action plan, cultivate and expand the team of environmental protection volunteers, and guide and support the public and social organizations to carry out environmental protection activities. Enhance environmental information basic ability, statistical ability and business application ability. Build an environmental information resource center, strengthen the research and development application of the Internet of Things in the fields of automatic monitoring of pollution sources, real-time monitoring of environmental quality, and transportation of dangerous chemicals, and promote the sharing of information resources.
　　　 (fifteen) improve the environmental management system and working mechanism.Construct a comprehensive decision-making mechanism for environmental protection. Improve the system and mechanism of environmental monitoring and supervision, and strengthen the national environmental monitoring function. Continue to implement the dual management system of leading cadres in environmental protection departments. Encourage qualified areas to carry out comprehensive reform of the environmental protection system. Combined with the institutional reform of local people’s governments and township institutions, we will explore the implementation of the supervision mode of environmental protection agencies in cities with districts and improve the grass-roots environmental management system. Strengthen nuclear and radiation safety supervision functions and team building. Implement the long-term plan for the development of ecological and environmental protection talents.
　　　 (sixteen) to strengthen the leadership and assessment of environmental protection work.Local people’s governments at all levels should effectively put environmental protection in a prominent position in the overall work, put it on an important agenda, clarify objectives and tasks, improve policies and measures, and organize the implementation of national key environmental protection projects. Formulate the target index system of ecological civilization construction, and incorporate it into the performance appraisal of local people’s governments at all levels. The assessment results are an important part of the comprehensive evaluation of leading bodies and leading cadres, and are an important basis for the selection, appointment, management and supervision of cadres, and the one-vote veto system for environmental protection is implemented. Implement regional approval restrictions for places that have not completed the target and task assessment, suspend the approval of projects other than people’s livelihood projects, energy conservation and emission reduction, ecological environmental protection and infrastructure construction in this area, and investigate relevant leadership responsibilities.
　　　 All localities and departments should strengthen coordination, clarify responsibilities, division of labor and schedule requirements, and conscientiously implement this opinion. The Ministry of Environmental Protection shall, jointly with relevant departments, strengthen the supervision and inspection of the implementation of this opinion, and report major cases to the State Council.

State Council　　　　　　　　　　
October 17th, 2011