Ministry of Ecology and Environment
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The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA, Simplified Chinese: 国家环境保护总局) is a cabinet-level agency in the executive branch of the Chinese Government (People's Republic of China). It is the nation's environmental protection agency charged with the task of protecting China's air, water, and land from pollution and contamination. Directly under the State Council, SEPA is enpowered and required by law to implement environmental policies and enforce environmental laws and regulations. Complimenting its regulatory role, SEPA funds and organizes research and development. In addition, it also serves as China's nuclear safety agency.[1]
History
Organization
There are 12 offices and departments under SEPA, all at the si (司) level in the government ranking system. They carry out regulatory tasks in different areas and make sure that the agency is functioning smoothly:
- General Administrative Office (办公厅)
- Department of Human Resources & Institutional Affairs(行政体制与人事司)
- Department of Planning and Finance (规划与财务司)
- Department of Policies, Laws and Regulations (政策法规司)
- Department of Science & Technology and Standards (科技标准司)
- Pollution Control Office (污染控制司)
- Natural Ecosystem Protection Office (自然生态保护司)
- Department of Environmental Impact Assessment (环境影响评价管理司)
- International Cooperation Office (国际合作司)
- Department of Nuclear Safety (核安全管理司)
- Environmental Inspection Office (环境监察局)
- Office of Agency & Party Affairs (机关党委)
Leadership
- Administrator/Minister: ZHOU Shengxian (周生贤).
- Vice-Minister: PAN Yue (潘岳)
- Former Administrator/Minister: XIE Zhenhua (解振华)
Xie resigned in December 2005 amidst an industrial pollution scandal by PetroChina, a Chinese national oil company, on the Songhua River in the northeastern province Heilongjiang; local environmental protection officials were accused of protectionism, while senior officials at SEPA were blamed for their underestimating and ignoring the matter.[2][3].
The Vice-Minister, PAN Yue (潘岳), who has served in SEPA with Xie and is still in power, has been one of the most vocal high-level officials in the Chinese government that is critical of the current development model and warned during an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel that "the Chinese miracle will end soon" if sustainable issues were not addressed urgently. [4].
Regional Inspection & Enforcement Centers
In 2006, SEPA opened five regional centers to help with local inspections and enforcement. The five centers are direct affiliates of SEPA:
- Eastern Center: office located in Nanjing, covering Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Shandong.
- Southern Center: office located in Guangzhou, covering Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan.
- Northwestern Center: office located in Xi'an, covering Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Ningxia.
- Southwestern Center: office located in Chengdu, covering Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Tibet.
- Northestern Center: office located in Shenyang, covering Liaoning, Jining, and Heilongjiang.
SEPA headquarters is responsible for the surrounding provinces/municipalities, namely: Beijing, [Tianjing]], Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia.
Areas of Activities
SEPA regulates water quality, ambient air quality, solid waste, soil, noise, radioactivity, and ecological quality.
In terms of R&D activities, SEPA has funded a series of "Key Laboratories" in different parts of the country, including: Laboratory for Urban Air Particles Pollution Prevention and Control for Environmental Protection, Laboratory on Environment and Health, Laboratory on Industrial Ecology, Laboratory on Wetland Ecology and Vegetation Recovery, and Laboratory on Biosafety.[5]
In addition, SEPA also administers engineering and technical research centers related to environmental protection, including: Center for Non-ferrous Metal Industrial Pollution Control, Center for Clean Coal and Ecological Recovery of Mines, Center for Industrial Waste Water Pollution Control, Center for Industrial Flue Gas Control, Center for Hazardous Waste Treatment, and Ceter for Solid Waste Treatment and Disposal of Mines.[6]
In the Media
Vice minister PAN Yue, a former journalist, said in an interview with www.chinadialogue.net that the fundamental cause of the worsening global environmental crisis "...is the capitalist system. The environmental crisis has become a new means of transferring the economic crisis." [7]. He believes China's role in the environmental crisis "... has arisen, basically, because our mode of economic modernisation has been copied from western, developed nations. "In 20 years, China has achieved economic results that took a century to attain in the west. But we have also concentrated a century’s worth of environmental issues into those 20 years. While becoming the world leader in GDP growth and foreign investment, we have also become the world’s number one consumer of coal, oil and steel – and the largest producer of CO2 and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions." [8].