Chongqing's ecology and environment department issued 1,158 administrative penalties in 2023

On December 18, the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment held a press conference on the connection between administrative law enforcement and judicial protection of the city's ecological and environmental protection to inform the connection between law enforcement and justice of Chongqing's ecological and environmental protection in 2023. As of 15 December, this year, Chongqing's ecological and environmental departments had imposed 1,158 administrative penalties with fines of 83,251,700 yuan; public security organs had investigated and prosecuted 73 criminal cases of environmental pollution; procuratorial organs had arrested and prosecuted 781 people for 35 criminal offenses of damaging ecological and environmental resources; and judicial organs had concluded 1,535 cases of various types of environmental resources.

According to the 2023 Chongqing Municipal Work Plan for the Convergence of Executions for Ecological and Environmental Protection, the five departments of the Chongqing Municipal Public Security, the Procuratorate, the Court, the Bureau of Justice, and the Ecology and Environment have carried out in-depth special actions to crack down on environmental violations and crimes of hazardous waste, as well as special actions against the fraud of automatic monitoring data of key pollutant discharge units, and special rectification actions on the problem of fraud by third-party environmental protection service agencies. During the operation, the five departments carried out special case promotion, joint consultation, and escalation of investigation and handling of major, difficult and complex cases, so as to effectively improve the efficiency of case investigation and handling.

Among them, the special rectification action focusing on the fraud of third-party environmental protection service agencies and the "two dozen" special action have achieved remarkable results, investigating and dealing with 31 criminal cases in the field of hazardous waste and automatic monitoring respectively, doubling year-on-year, investigating and dealing with 64 cases of fraud by third-party environmental protection service agencies, and 2 cases have been included in the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly listed for supervision, which has effectively cracked down on and deterred relevant environmental violations and crimes.

The scene of the press conference. Photo by Yu Changhai

In terms of in-depth crackdown on hazardous waste environmental violations and crimes and the illegal and criminal actions of automatic monitoring data falsification of key pollutant discharge units, the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment investigated a total of 5,021 key enterprises, found and supervised the rectification of 573 environmental problems involving hazardous waste, filed 38 cases and punished them, fined more than 850 yuan, transferred 31 criminal cases to the public security organs, arrested 67 criminal suspects, and eliminated 17 criminal gangs. In addition, the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment also found and supervised the rectification of 52 automatic monitoring problems, investigated and dealt with 34 cases of automatic monitoring violations, fined more than 230 yuan, transferred 13 criminal cases to the public security organs, and the effective transmission rate of automatic monitoring data in the city reached 97.14%.

In terms of special rectification actions against fraud by third-party environmental protection service agencies, Chongqing mainly carried out secret inspections in six key areas: monitoring, environmental impact assessment preparation, carbon emission data management, online monitoring, independent acceptance, and motor vehicle exhaust detection. Up to now, the city has inspected 1,158 third-party environmental protection service organizations, supervised and rectified 727 general environmental problems, investigated and handled 56 cases of administrative punishment for environmental violations, fined more than 500 yuan, and transferred 8 cases to the public security for suspected criminal cases, 8 cases were investigated and punished by the market supervision department, fined more than 20 yuan, 8 cases were filed by the public security organs, and 2 cases were examined and prosecuted by the procuratorial organs.