Sepa might be raised to ministerial level
Chinanews, Beijing, Nov. 11 - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) on Thursday jointly released China’s first environmental assessment report. In the report, OECD proposes that SEPA be raised to be the ministry of environment, and SEPA has responded to the idea in the affirmative.In the report, Deputy Secretary-General of OECD Kiyo Akasaka says that Chinese local governments have cared too much about their GDP growth and always placed economic growth ahead of environmental protection. At present, some administrative functions, such as environmental law enforcement and environmental monitoring, still belong to local governments, whereas SEPA is in no position to check the behaviors of local governments effectively. In order to strengthen the central department’s role in supervising local environmental bureaus, OECD suggests that SEPA be to be the ministry of environment.
In responding to this proposal, SEPA spokesman and deputy director-general Pan Yue said SEPA alone could not make the decision on this matter, nor had SEPA come up with any substantial scheme on it. However, SEPA generally agrees to OECD’s proposal, said Pan.
He said SEPA supported the idea not because the new title sounded more authoritative, or would bring credit to SEPA, but because China now really needed an administrative body that could handle environmental issues on a comprehensive basis and could curb the present high incidence of environmental accidents.