A top environmental official advocated establishing legislation
that fines polluters each day they violate a reform of the current
fine system, which has a set maximum.
"The punishment should be calculated from the day that factory
is found guilty of pollution discharge until the day its emissions
meet environmental protection requirements," Mao Rubai, chairman of
the Environmental and Resources Protection Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPC), said in a recent news
briefing.
Revision of the Clean Water Act, which took effect from 1984, is
under discussion, and the NPC has said it will change the penalty
system. The question is how.
The current feeling among industries is that as the penalty has
a cap, it's cheaper to pay the fine than correct the pollution
problem.
If the cap is removed, Mao said, "the factories (will) fully
realize the importance of abiding by environmental protection
law."
A joint study by the Environmental Enforcement Bureau under the
State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the
Beijing office of the US-based Environmental Defense supported
Mao's stand.
The study, launched in last March, took samples from the
wastewater treatment operations of 200 factories. It concluded that
the daily penalty could be set at about 40,000 yuan (US$5,000), a
median charge severe enough to change polluters' behaviour.
"Our study shows that the upper limit could be as high as
100,000 yuan (US$12,500) per day, if economic growth is factored
in," Environmental Defence spokesman Qin Hu said.
In the United States, the punishment is fixed at US$25,000 per
day.
Under normal circumstances, once the fines against an
environmental troublemaker reach 200,000 yuan (US$25,000), it does
not have to pay any more. But all a factory has to do is stop
treating wastewater for about five days to save the 40,000 yuan
(US$5,000) a day to pay the fine.
However, SEPA may raise the fine cap to 1 million yuan
(US$125,000) if the pollution has caused serious enough
environmental damage and economic loss.
"As calculating the economic loss is always difficult, the
penalty usually stays at 200,000 yuan (US$25,000)," said Lin Hong,
a senior researcher from the Chinese Research Academy of
Environmental Science and a member of the joint SEPA-Environmental
Defence study team.
To date, only one factory has been fined 1 million yuan. The
Sichuan General Chemical Group's No 2 chemical fertilizer plant
polluted the Tuojiang River in southwest China in 2004, causing the
deaths of more than 500,000 kilograms of fish and leaving more than
1 million local residents unable to use the water for nearly a
month.
Qin said changing to a daily penalty "will not only solve the
current problem, but also address the concern of repetitive
law-breaking."
"With Mao's comment, we have more confidence than before that
this new accumulated penalty structure will be integrated into the
amendments," he said.
Bie Tao, deputy director of SEPA's department of politics, laws
and regulation, said two other matters are also under discussion
for the amendment: who should issue water pollution discharge
permits and the definitions of the functions of water areas, based
on what the water is used for.
(China Daily October 8, 2006)