A senior Chinese legislator has called for reforms to improve enforcement of the law requiring environmental impact assessments of major industrial projects before they are approved.

Assessment bodies must be independent of the government in order to establish clear national standards for environmental assessments, said Chen Zhili, vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

The Environmental Impact Assessment Law, which took effect in 2003, had helped to reduce pollution over the past five years, but significant loopholes remained, said Chen.

She criticized "some local governments" for approving projects before they had passed the environmental assessment, adding that some local environmental departments had failed to supervise the implementation of environmental measures required by the assessment.

"What's worse, very few officials who were held responsible for some pollution cases have been punished in accordance with administrative regulations or the criminal law," Chen said.

She cited last year's algae outburst in Taihu Lake, which forced local water plants to stop household water supplies in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province.

A comprehensive crackdown on polluting factories ensued, but some of those companies had just relocated to other areas, such as Jiangsu's economically backward north, where they continued to pollute, Chen said.

A set of national standards would help local environmental departments deal with the growing number of proposals requiring assessment, she said.

Last year, environmental officials at all levels assessed 280,000 projects nationwide.

Guangdong Province turned down 4,811 projects that failed to meet the law's requirements, while Shandong Province has closed all small paper mills each with a capacity of less than 50,000 tonnes per year.

Independent assessment agencies would also make prosecutions of those who violated the law easier and fairer, she said.

"It is difficult to guarantee the fairness of the assessment, if the current system is not reformed," Chen told the Fifth Session of the 11th NPC Standing Committee in a report on the law.

Over the past five years, the government had reviewed 1.17 million infrastructure and industrial project proposals and thousands were rejected for fear of possible pollution, she said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2008)