Force, precision, special treatment, environmental protection, new three division, function announcement

With the change of the concept of governing the environment of the Ministry of environmental protection, institutional reform is also in progress. In the view of many industry insiders, the newly established three driver's offices will be in accordance with the business sector, respectively, the management of water, gas, soil three major areas. At the same time, some functions of the Department of natural ecology protection were also assigned to three new divisions. And environmental experts, who did not want to be named, predicted that in the next year or two, the Ministry of Environmental Protection's institutional reform initiatives will fall into place one after another.

The Ministry of environmental protection has reformed substantive progress.

In April 2016, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that, according to the newly adjusted policy, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has re-established the Department of Atmosphere, Water and Soil, so the Ministry of Environmental Protection has taken the lead in implementing the specific work of the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan", and some responsibility departments have changed. In this adjustment process, part of the original decentralized authority in various departments began to gradually concentrate on the hands of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

It is noteworthy that in the process of work adjustment, the new "three departments" system also allows the Ministry of Environmental Protection to some extent centralize the original decentralized power in the relevant departments. The Rural Department of the Water Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection is responsible for the formulation of the non-point source pollution prevention and control program in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, which was originally responsible for the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection.

Public opinion holds that the establishment of the three "elements department" and the cancellation of the two departments of pollution prevention and total quantity of the Ministry of Environmental Protection are not simple merger and reconstruction, but reflect a major change in China's current thinking of environmental governance, that is, the transformation from total quantity control to environmental quality improvement, and pay more attention to the division of labor and refinement, professional governance and professional review. Investigation, to achieve a real sense of special governance, the corresponding environmental protection agencies are expected to make corresponding institutional adjustments.

When water flows, a channel is formed

When asked when the earliest news of the new three departments was heard, many people close to the Ministry of Environmental Protection answered, "I can't remember," or even "more than 20 years ago. Water, air, soil, living things... These environmental elements constitute the living environment of mankind, and also the discharge place of human pollutants. Waste gas is easy to diffuse, waste water can flow, waste residue in the soil degradation is very slow, the management of different environmental factors vary greatly, according to environmental factors management is an international experience, the domestic appeal for many years.

There are private think tanks. In early 2013, the China Clean Air Alliance was established, and the first batch of reports included how much "money" and "people" are needed to prevent and control haze. In 2012, the budget of the US EPA was $9 billion, while that of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection was only $600 million. The staffing gap was even greater. The total number of the US EPA was 17106, and that of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection was 311.

Environmental protection officials also discovered the gap. In 2013, Zhao Hualin, then director of the Department of Pollution Prevention (chairman of the board of supervisors of key state-owned large enterprises), took the lead in formulating the "gas 10 regulations". When he visited the United States, he found that the United States had a large professional atmospheric environmental management team, with 1,400 civil servants in the Atmospheric and Radiation Office and thousands of people in California. Atmospheric environment. At that time, the Ministry of environmental protection and the Department of air pollution had only 3 units in the atmosphere, and more than 10 people were seconded. "No wonder foreigners say,'China is a very serious environment pollution, and the least people manage the atmosphere'. We are in the first place. Zhao Hualin said.

Not only learn from foreign countries, out of the characteristics of the city and the implementation needs of "gas 10" and "water 10", the local practice goes earlier. The provincial environmental protection departments such as Beijing, Guangdong and Shandong have already classified their offices according to water, gas, soil and solid wastes. In Suzhou, when the Blue Sky Project was launched in 2007, the Blue Sky Office was established and was then headed by the deputy mayor in charge of the environment. In 2013, after the launch of the "gas ten item", the "air office" was established, which has been upgraded to the mayor's responsibility. In Taiyuan, which is regarded by the Ministry of Environmental Protection as an example of haze control, the level of this coordination mechanism is as high as provincial level: the provincial governor serves as the head of the coordination group for the overall improvement of environmental quality in provincial cities.

What functions will the "three departments" undertake?

It is easy to find that since 2016, the adjustment of the Ministry of environmental protection has always been the concern of the outside world. Recently, the "three divisions" function of water, atmosphere and soil has been officially promulgated, and the "head" has also been finalized. It is understood that the Director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment Management is Liu Bingjiang, the former Director of the Department of Total Quantity, while the Department of Water Environment Management and the Department of Soil Environment Management are respectively chaired by Li Lei and Qiu Qiwen.

According to public information, the "Department of Water Environment Management" is responsible for the supervision and management of the national water environment protection, with six internal organs, namely, the comprehensive office, the surface water department, the drinking water department, the marine department, the water fixed source office and the rural department; and the "Department of Atmospheric Environment Management" is responsible for the supervision and management of the prevention and control of air, noise, light and fossil energy pollution throughout the country. There are six internal organs: comprehensive office, atmospheric office, regional coordination office, atmospheric fixed source office, motor vehicle office and noise office; Soil Environmental Management Department is mainly responsible for the supervision and management of soil, solid waste, chemicals, heavy metals and other pollution prevention and control throughout the country, with four internal organs: comprehensive office, soil office, solid office and chemical office.

After the establishment of the "three divisions", all relevant responsibilities related to the three elements of water, atmosphere and soil were classified. These include the responsibility of organizing and drafting the water, air and soil environmental quality standards, pollutant discharge standards and environmental management related norms previously under the Division of Scientific and Technical Standards; the responsibility of permitting, controlling and trading pollutant discharge rights of water, air and soil originally under the Division of Total Quantity; and the responsibility of the former Department of Pollution Prevention and Control on the issue of pollutant discharge rights. Water, atmospheric environmental management, urban land, solid waste, chemicals and heavy metals and other pollution prevention and control responsibilities.

In addition, the responsibility of preventing and controlling straw burning pollution, which belonged to the Department of Natural Ecology Protection, was assigned to the Department of Atmospheric Environment Management, and the responsibility of preventing and controlling rural soil pollution, which belonged to the Department of Natural Ecology Protection, was assigned to the Department of Soil Environment Management.

Three campaigns against the right remedy

The Ministry of Environmental Protection pointed out that as early as February 2015, the relevant central departments approved the establishment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection agencies to make some adjustments, no longer retain the Department of Pollution Prevention and Control, the Department of Total Pollutant Discharge Control, the establishment of water, atmosphere, soil three environmental management departments.

Wang Manchuan, secretary-general of the China Association for Administrative System Reform, said the establishment of three new environmental management divisions, namely, water, gas and soil, would help to strengthen the power of "acting on the right side" and integrate limited resources. Secondly, from the perspective of the change in the name of the organization, environmental policy is shifting from pollutant control to paying more attention to improving environmental quality and upgrading. Comprehensive governance capability.

Wang Manchuan further introduced that, generally speaking, after the adjustment of ministries and commissions, provincial units will adjust their counterparts accordingly. However, at the local municipal and county levels, arrangements may be more flexible because of the actual situation in different parts of the country. At the 2016 National Conference on Environmental Protection held in January, 2016, Chen Jining, Minister of Environmental Protection, said, "The plan for the adjustment of the internal organs of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the reform of the environmental supervision system has been approved by the central government. We are studying the drafting of the draft "three fixed" amendments and the establishment of environmental monitoring system.

Some environmental protection experts said that the establishment of the "water, gas and soil" three environmental management departments is a solid step forward in the institutional reform of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which is conducive to better command and increase the intensity of environmental control, fine play "water, gas and soil" pollution prevention and control "three campaigns".

Chen Jinning, Minister of Environmental Protection, once said that during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, environmental protection work should focus on improving environmental quality, resolutely fight the "three battles" of atmosphere, water and soil, constantly improve the systematization, scientization, legalization, marketization and informatization of environmental management, and accelerate the system and management of ecological environment. Modernization of capabilities.