State Environmental Protection Administration Totally Explained

Everything about The State Environmental Protection Administration totally explained

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA, |t=|p=guójiā huánjìng bǎohù zǒngjú}}) 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 empowered and required by law to implement environmental policies and enforce environmental laws and regulations. Complementing its regulatory role, SEPA funds and organizes research and development. In addition, it also serves as China's nuclear safety agency.(External Link

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During the 2008 March National People's Congress sessions in Beijing, the Central Government announced the establishment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, to replace SEPA, essentially elevating the agency's powers in the government. (External Link

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History

In 1972, Chinese representatives attended the First United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Sweden. The next year, 1973, saw the establishment of the Environmental Protection Leadership Group. In 1983, the Chinese government announced that environmental protection would become a state policy. In 1998, China went through a disastrous year of serious flooding, and the Chinese government upgraded the Leading Group to a ministry-level agency, which is now the State Environmental Protection Administration.

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 accordingly:

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)

Head of Discipline: ZHU Guangyao (祝光耀)

Vice-Minister: ZHANG Lijun (张力军)

Vice-Minister: WU Xiaochun (吴晓青)

Vice-Minister: ZHOU Jian (周建)

Vice-Minister, Bureau Chief for Nuclear Safety: LI Ganjie (李干杰)

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.(External Link

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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 critical of the current development model. He warned during an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel that "the Chinese miracle will end soon" if sustainable issues were not addressed urgently. (External Link

). 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 its 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. In the area 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.(External Link

) 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.(External Link

) China is experiencing an increase in environmental complaints: In 2005, there were 51,000 disputes over environmental pollution, according to SEPA minister Zhou Shengxian. From 2001 to 2005, Chinese environmental authorities received more than 2.53 million letters and 430,000 visits by 597,000 petitioners seeking environmental redress. (External Link

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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." (External Link

). 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 30 years, China has achieved economic results that took a century to attain in the west. But we've also concentrated a century’s worth of environmental issues into those 30 years. While becoming the world leader in GDP growth and foreign investment, we've 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." (External Link

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