A certain newspaper recently published an editorial with the headline “Environmental impact assessments are not a rubber stamp for implementing election campaign pledges.” The editorial said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was worried that her “five major innovative industries” campaign policy proposal would get bogged down by environmental impact assessments (EIA), so she wanted the assessments to be done more efficiently, and that is why the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is keen on amending the EIA system.
The newspaper has on many past occasions devoted lots of space to presenting the business sector’s point of view, namely, that environmental impact assessments are inefficient and the assessors’ right of veto is an obstacle to business investment.
The fact that the same newspaper is now acting as an advocate for the EIA system and calling for it not to become a mere rubber stamp is indeed praiseworthy, but the editorial contains some errors about the sequence of events, leading to a certain degree of misunderstanding, and this calls for clarification.
Taiwan adopted its EIA system, based on similar systems overseas, more than 20 years ago. Over time, the business sector has repeatedly called for EIA committees’ right to veto to be abolished, as well as accusing the system of being inefficient. Environmental groups and people living around the edge of development zones also often criticize environmental impact assessments for functioning poorly.
Following the presidential election, I was twice invited to visit a Democratic Progressive Party think tank and report on the problems that have arisen with environmental impact assessments and how to set them right. Subsequently I was enlisted as deputy minister of the EPA.
I have been questioned by the media many times since my appointment was announced, and on each occasion I have clearly explained the above-mentioned reason for my having joined the Cabinet, as well as saying that we will amend the EIA system to ensure that it properly performs its function of approving or rejecting a project, as well as carry out investigations more efficiently.
During the long Dragon Boat Festival weekend, several groups of Cabinet members visited Tsai’s residence in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) to exchange views on policies. In this process, I only helped out by looking at policy proposals concerned with land use, including the five major innovative industries, and explaining briefly which of them would not need environmental impact assessments and which of them may need them.
With regard to those that will need to undergo assessment, I estimated the difficulties involved according to the land attributes of the areas envisaged for their construction. The objective was simply to provide one of the factors for consideration in determining the priorities for promoting future policies.
Neither Tsai nor Premier Lin Chuan (林全) demanded that assessments be sped up for the five major innovative industries, so the newspaper editorial was mistaken in this respect.
Since the nation adopted an EIA system, data produced by academics or the government show that about 4 percent of development projects have been rejected by the EPA. This number is even lower for local governments, and some counties and cities never reject a project.
Has the number of projects that might have a serious environmental impact really been so low over the past 20 years? Perhaps the main problem is inefficiency rather than rejections based on environmental impact assessments.
In short, in the original US model, the competent authority handled project development applications and then carried out an assessment to decide whether to approve the application. One of the factors in the decision was the project’s environmental impact. When this model was introduced in Taiwan, the legislature did not trust that the Council for Economic Planning and Development would be a responsible environmental watchdog, and so asked the EPA to take on the responsibility for reviewing the environmental impact of development activities. The developer then commissioned a consulting company to assess the environmental impact.
What are the chances that a paid consultant would not cater to their client’s needs? Hence, developers would hire consulting firms to conduct systemically scientific and objective investigations and evaluations premised on passing an environmental assessment, which consequently made a positive evaluation of the project.
The current system also has a fundamental problem — EIA committee members, environmental protection groups and residents all focus their attention on finding faults with the EIA report or trying to get the other side to agree to a compromise, while ignoring the fact that the target of the assessment is the development activity itself.
The EIA report is only a supplementary review tool. Of course efficiency is impaired. During a recent conversation with EIA committee members, one member displayed a sign that said what he wanted to see was a comprehensive development plan and not some embellished EIA report. He hit the nail on the head.
To thoroughly resolve the core problem of the EIA system, it is essential to sever the interdependent relationship between developers and consulting companies.
Developers should only be required to submit a comprehensive development plan, and the competent environmental authority should then select a suitable consulting firm to act as an “administrative assistant” — not as a “third-party environmental assessment consultant” as some newspapers would have it — in evaluating the environmental impact of the development activities.
Only by establishing a fair evaluation mechanism coupled with auxiliary measures can a functional system be created and efficiency be enhanced.
The goal of economic development is to improve living standards, and this should entail safe food, fresh air, sufficient clean water and physical health. These are primary objectives of environmental protection, and the environmental impact assessment is a tool to balance economic development and environmental protection.
Chan Shun-kuei is the deputy minister of the Environmental Protection Administration.
Translated by Julian Clegg and Ethan Zhan
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