Environmental impact assessment of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment

　　The Ministry of Ecology and Environment recently issued the "Opinions on Further Optimizing Environmental Impact Assessment"(hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), in order to better understand the background, main content and highlight measures of the Opinions, the reporter interviewed the relevant person in charge of the Department of Environmental Impact Assessment and Emission Management of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and made a detailed interpretation of the Opinions.

　　Q: What is the background and significance of the issuance of the Opinions?

　　The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that high-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, and promoting green and low-carbon economic and social development is the key link to achieve high-quality development. The National Conference on Ecological Environmental Protection pointed out that it is necessary to correctly handle the relationship between high-quality development and high-level protection. The Central Economic Work Conference, the Government Work Report and the recent Politburo meeting made a series of arrangements and deployments to promote high-quality economic development and promote the green transformation of economic and social development with high-level protection.

　　The formulation and implementation of the Opinions is a concrete measure to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Central Economic Work Conference, the National Eco-environmental Protection Conference and the recent Politburo meeting of the Central Committee, implement the relevant tasks of the government work report, and guide ecological and environmental departments at all levels to effectively unify their thinking and actions with the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, and contribute to promoting high-quality development and promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of economic and social development.

　　Since the 13th Five-Year Plan, EIA and related fields have been continuously deepened in reform and institutional convergence, playing an important role in strict environmental access, optimizing the business environment, and serving high-quality development. In order to further strengthen the linkage between EIA and ecological environment zoning control, pollution discharge permits, law enforcement and supervision, further exert the synergy of systems, improve the efficiency of source prevention, firmly adhere to the bottom line of ecological environmental protection, and strengthen the guarantee of EIA services in the process of economic development, these Opinions are formulated.

　　Q: What is the general idea behind the compilation of the Opinions?

　　Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Opinions fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the spirit of the National Conference on Ecological Environmental Protection, deeply implement Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, adhere to the unity of goal guidance and problem orientation, and further optimize the EIA work by strengthening institutional linkage. First, strengthen linkage and improve efficiency, promote efficient linkage of systems such as zoning control, environmental impact assessment, and pollution discharge permits, and improve the efficiency of source prevention; The second is to improve the process and ensure development, coordinate the management requirements from macro to micro, from source to process, optimize the management process, and improve the efficiency and quality of EIA; The third is to lead green, guard the bottom line, strengthen macro control, strictly enforce environmental access, and lead and promote the green development of the industry; Fourth, strict supervision, focus on practical results, strengthen linkage with law enforcement supervision systems, and promote the implementation of responsibilities.

　　The Opinions are divided into five parts: general requirements, strengthening institutional linkage, deepening EIA reform, maintaining the bottom line of ecological and environmental protection, and strengthening grassroots capacity building, with a total of 18 specific requirements.

　　Q: How are the Opinions considered for strengthening the linkage between the EIA system and the ecological environment zoning control system and the pollution discharge permit system?

　　In terms of strengthening the connection between environmental impact assessment and ecological environment zoning management and control system, first, give play to the guiding role of ecological environment zoning management and control, rely on informatization to strengthen the application of landing, service planning and project investment attraction; The second is to optimize the environmental impact assessment of industrial park planning in combination with the zoning control of the ecological environment, simplify the compliance and coordination analysis of laws, regulations, policies and plans, and connect the content on the identification and constraint analysis of major ecological and environmental problems, and the analysis of resource and environmental carrying capacity.

　　In terms of strengthening the connection between the EIA and the pollution discharge permit system, explore and promote the "integration of two certificates" for project EIA and pollution discharge permits. Explore the implementation of "two certificates into one" for 12 types of construction projects, such as the agricultural and sideline food processing industry, which have a single production process, small environmental impact, short construction period, and should prepare an environmental impact report form, and continue to go through environmental impact assessment and pollution discharge permit procedures before the project starts construction. If major changes in the EIA occur during the construction process, the EIA and pollution discharge permit shall be re-processed in accordance with the law; If it is not a major change, there is no need to re-apply for an EIA, and a one-time change of the pollutant discharge permit before the pollutant discharge is made.

　　Q: What are the considerations for deepening EIA reform?

　　The first is to deepen the reform of project EIA through the "four batches" pilot, that is, pilot a batch of report form projects to "bundle" for approval, pilot a batch of registration form projects to be exempted from filing procedures, simplify the content of a batch of report (form) project environmental impact assessment, and optimize and improve the review and management of a batch of project EIA total indicators. In addition, provincial-level ecological and environmental departments are required to promote the pilot reform work in an orderly manner in accordance with local conditions. The second is to encourage the pilot work of greenhouse gas environmental impact assessment and explore the environmental impact assessment technical methods and management systems that integrate pollutants and greenhouse gas management.

　　Q: The Opinions propose to deepen the "four batches" reform pilot project linking planning EIA and project EIA.

　　The "Opinions" fully absorbs the exploration and practical experience of various localities, and implements the "four batches" reform pilot in industrial parks that meet certain conditions.

　　The first is to pilot and promote the "bundling" approval of a number of report form projects, summarize the reform experience, implement the EIA "bundling" approval of nine types of report form projects such as furniture manufacturing in the pilot park, and clarify the environmental protection responsibilities of each enterprise. In addition, the EIA management of biopharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D pilot projects in the pilot park where the production facilities and environmental protection facilities remain unchanged, and only raw and auxiliary materials and products change, and the ecological and environmental department with the right to approve the pollutants does not exceed the original EIA, there is no need to re-assess the EIA.

　　The second is to pilot a number of registration form projects to be exempted from filing procedures, mainly for five types of projects with low environmental impact, such as urban roads, pipe network corridors, distributed photovoltaic power generation, primary medical and health services, urban drainage river sluices and drainage pump stations in the pilot park.

　　The third is to simplify the EIA content of a number of reports (tables) projects, on the one hand, link the planning EIA, and simplify the EIA content of construction projects that are included in the park planning and the management of special planning EIAs such as coal mining areas, ports, shipping, water conservancy, hydropower, and rail transit; On the other hand, the approval and demonstration of the setting up of the sewage outlet of the river is connected, and the relevant analysis content of the project environmental impact assessment is appropriately simplified.

　　On the one hand, do a good job in ensuring the environmental impact assessment of major investment projects, relevant key projects can coordinate the allocation of index sources within provincial-level administrative regions, and the indicators of "first establish and then change" coal power projects can come from non-electric industries; On the other hand, the management of total indicators of some small and medium-sized enterprises in the pilot park is optimized, and if the single new annual emissions of nitrogen oxides, chemical oxygen demand and volatile organic pollutants are less than 0.1 tons, and ammonia nitrogen is less than 0.01 tons, they can be exempted from submitting the source description of the total amount indicators.

　　Q: What are the considerations and arrangements for enhancing the prevention effectiveness of EIA at source?

　　The Opinions require ecological and environmental departments at all levels to perform their duties and responsibilities, strictly abide by the bottom line, ensure the quality of EIA approval, and strengthen supervision during and after the event.

　　The first is to strictly abide by the bottom line of environmental access, adhere to the general requirements of ecological priority and green development, strictly approve according to law, strictly abide by the bottom line of ecological environment, and clarify the key points of EIA approval for projects involving "two highs and one low", undertaking industrial transfer projects, "park" projects, ecologically sensitive projects, and projects with high social concern.

　　The second is to strengthen the management of environmental impact assessment of projects in key industries with ecological impact, categorize and clarify the key points of environmental impact assessment approval and supervision of transportation, water conservancy and hydropower, resource development and other types of projects, and strengthen biodiversity assessment and protection.

　　The third is to promote supervision during and after the event, improve the linkage mechanism between EIA and law enforcement supervision, consolidate local regulatory responsibilities, improve institutional synergy, and ensure the implementation of EIA requirements.

　　Q: How to strengthen grassroots capacity building?

　　In terms of strengthening grassroots guidance and assistance, the first is to strengthen guidance and assistance, strengthen targeted training, especially include grassroots administrative examination and approval departments in the scope of guidance and training. Make good use of the national EIA technical assessment service consultation platform to provide online guidance and remote guidance for grassroots units. The second is to strengthen supervision and management, strengthen the quality management of EIA documents and approval quality through daily inspections and reviews, promote the online handling of the entire EIA examination and approval, and promote the standardization of review.

　　In terms of improving grassroots capabilities, the first is to improve technical capabilities, sort out and optimize the setting of EIA approval authority, strengthen the capacity building of technical assessment institutions, encourage the coordination of technical assessment forces to provide services to grassroots levels, and encourage various forms of skills competition. The second is to improve informatization capabilities, accelerate the realization of full coverage of the unified declaration and approval system for environmental impact assessment of construction projects nationwide, promote the application of intelligent review at the grassroots level, continue to do a good job in data sharing, and strengthen data mining applications.