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Tag: environmental regulation
Sweeping New Chinese Laws Tackle Mounting Pollution Problems

Sweeping New Chinese Laws Tackle Mounting Pollution Problems

By Stuart Leavenworth, McClatchy Foreign Staff

BEIJING — China’s lawmakers approved sweeping new environmental protections this week amid mounting concerns over pollution poisoning the nation’s air, water and soil.

The amendments, approved Thursday by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, are the first revisions to China’s environmental protection law since it took effect in 1989, Chinese state media reported Friday.

Environmentalists inside and outside the world’s largest country are hopeful that the amendments will result in tougher fines against polluters, taking away the incentive many industries have to pay meager penalties instead of investing in cleaner technology.

“These amendments are a game changer,” Barbara Finamore, Asia program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote on the council’s Switchboard blog. She said the amendments “put powerful new tools into the hands of environmental officials and the public, providing a strong legal foundation to the ‘war on pollution’ declared last month by Premier Li Keqiang.”

Taking effect next Jan. 1, the new law eliminates China’s cap on environmental fines. The Xinhua news agency reported one example cited by lawmaker Xin Chunying on Thursday. Xin said a company currently faced a fine of only 10,000 yuan ($1,600) for ignoring the requirement to use an approved power generator that would cost 500,000 yuan, or $80,000. Under the new law, that would change.

The new law also modifies the evaluation system for government officials, ensuring that environmental protection is considered along with performance in meeting economic growth targets. It also would give nongovernmental organizations more ability to take legal action against polluters.

This last change could prove particularly significant, since citizens have been repeatedly blocked in using the courts to address damage caused by factories and power plants.

On April 11, the water supply for more than 2.4 million people in the city of Lanzhou, in northwest China’s Gansu province, was found to be contaminated with benzene, a chemical linked to cancer. When five citizens sued the local water company, accusing it of a cover-up, a court quickly dismissed the case. According to state media, the court ruled that “only agencies and organizations that are stipulated by the law” are allowed to file pollution-related lawsuits.

Hardly a day passes in China without the revelation of another large, looming environmental problem. Last week, the environmental ministry reported the results of a soil survey conducted from 2005 to 2013. It found that heavy metals and other pollutants contaminated 16.1 percent of China’s soil and nearly one-fifth of its arable land.

On Friday in Beijing, reports surfaced that batches of rice grown in Hunan province were contaminated with cadmium.

Air pollution continues to smother vast stretches of the country, particularly in the east and north. Already this year, Beijing has had six days when the air quality index — a measure of contaminants — topped 500, a level the U.S. Embassy once described in a tweet as “crazy bad.” In 2012, there were 12 such days. In 2008, there was only one.

Chinese authorities are increasingly concerned that deteriorating environmental conditions will stir social unrest and pose a threat to Communist Party rule. Earlier this month, hundreds of protesters clashed with police while demonstrating against a proposed petrochemical plant in the southern China city of Maoming, in Guangdong province.

While environmentalists are hopeful that the new laws will give them tools for reducing the pollution burden, even Chinese state media are cautioning against expecting too much.

“Though approval of the environmental law revisions is enough reason to rejoice, it would be simple-minded to believe that the new law will automatically solve all troubles overnight,” Xinhua said in a commentary Friday. “China’s ecological problems are the result of decades of reckless pollution.”

Photo: akasped via Flickr

EPA Restricts Sulfur In Gasoline To Help Cut Auto Emissions

EPA Restricts Sulfur In Gasoline To Help Cut Auto Emissions

By Neela Banerjee, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency issued final rules Monday to slash the amount of sulfur in gasoline, which would help cut smog-causing pollution from autos and bring the rest of the country’s fuel supply in line with California’s standards.

The new rule for “Tier 3” gasoline calls for reducing the amount of sulfur in fuel by two-thirds, to 10 parts per million from 30 parts per million. Similar low-sulfur gasoline is already in use in California, Europe, Japan and South Korea.

The new gasoline would be available at the pump by January 2017.

Cutting sulfur improves the efficiency of catalytic converters in automobiles, which helps remove other pollutants that dirty the air and damage public health. The EPA said once the new rule was fully in place, it could “help avoid up to 2,000 premature deaths per year and 50,000 cases of respiratory ailments in children.”

“These standards are a win for public health, a win for our environment and a win for our pocketbooks,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.

Environmentalists, regulators and public health advocates welcomed the new regulation.

“This rule is a huge deal,” said S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state regulators. The organization estimated the rule would have the effect of removing 33 million cars from the road.

“Every metropolitan area in the country will benefit from it,” Becker said. “We know of no other air pollution control strategy that provides as substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions as Tier 3.”

The auto industry is among the rule’s biggest supporters because the new sulfur standards allow for a consistent national approach, instead of one in which a separate sulfur standard exists in California.

The new fuel standards also would provide gasoline that would make auto companies’ technology perform better.

“Since the vehicle emission system and the fuel used act together in determining the emissions performance of the vehicle, automakers need cleaner fuels to achieve the lowest possible emissions,” said Michael Robinson, vice president of sustainability at General Motors Co.

The EPA said the new lower-sulfur fuel would add less than a penny to the price of a gallon of gasoline. The oil industry, however, disputed the EPA’s estimate, calling it oversimplified.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s primary lobbyist, contends that the new sulfur standard would add 6 to 9 cents to every gallon of gasoline. The industry estimated that refiners would have to spend a total of $10 billion on new equipment.

“Any reform that increases the cost of manufacturing a product would put pressure on the price of that product,” said Bob Greco, director of refining and marketing for the American Petroleum Institute. “The costs being borne by industry are making it less competitive and affecting the consumer.”

Greco also said that mandating the production of the new low-sulfur fuel by 2017 was too fast and that the EPA usually gave the industry four to five years to comply with new rules. He said that his organization was reviewing the lengthy regulation and considering next steps, including the possibility of litigation.

McCarthy countered that the American Petroleum Institute’s estimate was based on outdated studies. Further, smaller refineries would have until 2025 to comply with the new standards.

Eleven years ago, California implemented a series of measures to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline from 80 parts per million to about nine now, said Stanley Young, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

The state estimated that the standard added six-tenths of a cent to the price of a gallon of gasoline, closer to the EPA’s estimate.

“It was in a large package of rules to tighten emissions for vehicles, and it was probably the least controversial part of the whole thing,” said Daniel Sperling, a member of the board and professor of transportation engineering at the University of California, Davis.

“The cost to the oil industry is tiny when you spread it out over the production process,” he said. “And the cost for consumers for a gallon of gas, compared to the volatility of oil prices, is not even noticeable.”

Photo: futureatlas.com via Flickr