The penalties for illegal activities in polluting the marine environment should be increased!

On August 29th, the 22nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress was held in Beijing. The meeting heard the State Council's explanation on the proposal to review the amendments to the Marine Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft). Entrusted by the State Council, Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming explained the draft.

Amend the existing provisions of the current Marine Environmental Protection Law

In order to further improve the marine environmental protection legal system, according to the relevant instructions of the leading comrades of the State Council, 16 units including the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, the Ministry of Land and Resources, and the State Oceanic Administration formed a special group to study the revision of relevant laws and regulations and determine the current ocean. The individual provisions of the Environmental Protection Law were amended to increase penalties for violations of the pollution of the marine environment. At the same time, according to the requirements of the reform of the administrative examination and approval system of the State Council, it is necessary to cancel a number of administrative licensing items and decouple the approval of investment projects from the approval of the EIA. To this end, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the State Oceanic Administration organized the draft amendments to the Marine Environmental Protection Law (draft for review), which were submitted to the State Council for review and approval.

Increase penalties for acts of polluting the marine environment

There are 9 drafts, mainly modifying or adding the following:

In response to the prominent problems in marine environmental protection work, we will increase penalties for acts of polluting the marine environment.

● Increase penalties on a daily basis, ordering closures, closures, etc.;

● Increase penalties for responsible personnel of the enterprise;

● Make coherent provisions on the legal responsibility for environmental impact assessment and the environmental impact assessment law for coastal engineering construction projects;

● Raise the penalties for causing marine environmental pollution accidents, cancel the fine of 300,000 yuan, and impose a fine of 20% and 30% of the direct accident losses according to the accident level.

The system added to the new Environmental Protection Law is linked in the Marine Environmental Protection Law.

● Implementing environmental impact assessment limits for key sea areas where the total amount of major pollutants discharged exceeds the standard or for sea areas where marine environmental protection objectives and tasks have not been completed;

● Increase the establishment of a sound marine ecological protection compensation system, and the development and utilization of marine resources should strictly abide by the ecological protection red line.

We will promote the reform of the administrative examination and approval system and revise some of the provisions of the administrative examination and approval items.

● According to the relevant decision of the State Council on the implementation of the online parallel approval system for enterprise investment projects and the cancellation of administrative examination and approval items, the time requirements for the preparation of environmental impact reports (tables) for coastal engineering and offshore engineering construction projects were changed from “feasibility study phase” to “feasibility study phase”. “Before the construction project starts”, the water conservancy approval for the ship-contaminated port area and the trial operation of the environmental protection facilities for the coastal project construction project will be cancelled.

● At the same time, the environmental impact report of the offshore engineering construction project is no longer filed with the environmental protection department, and the environmental protection facilities of the coastal engineering construction project are no longer accepted by the environmental protection department.