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Agencies need support
2005-07-22
China Daily
The government should fully support environmental protection agencies to help them tackle pollution, says an article in Workers' Daily. An excerpt follows:
A series of campaigns promoting the Law on the Prevention of Water Pollution were held recently in South China's island province of Hainan.
The well-intended campaign was derailed when some local environmental protection agencies started to speak up for pollutant-emitting enterprises. Speaking out of turn marked them out as spokespeople for the polluters, not as government agencies.
Environmental protection agencies were set up to protect both the environment and people from pollution, and to crack down on polluting activities. But the fact is they often turn out to be toothless tigers when faced with highly polluting projects simply because they make a lot of money.
This sort of malpractice seen at some local environmental protection agencies derives from a deep-rooted predicament resulting from how government is structured. A local environmental protection agency is part of the local government, so the local government has a say in its performance evaluation and operating funds appropriation.
When the interests of the local government are challenged by the enforcement of the Law on Environmental Protection, the environmental protection agency must often yield to the government's authority. That is why so many local environmental protection agencies turn a blind eye to pollutant-emitting projects.
However, we cannot simply blame environmental protection officials for their weakness in dealing with heavy polluters. They face challenges, too. Anti-pollution drives are often under-represented when local budgets are drawn up.
As a result, local anti-pollution agencies have to rely on themselves, and their usual approach is begging polluting companies to pay for the damage they cause. This may explain why environmental protection officials are relatively handsomely paid in places where polluting enterprises abound.
To pull anti-pollution agencies out of their embarrassing situation, the government should get rid of the "pollute first, pay later" mindset, and give them enough funds to run their operations and enough power to enforce environmental protection laws.
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