The Executive Yuan yesterday approved 43 draft amendments to the Organizational Act of the Executive Yuan (行政院組織法), which, if passed by legislators, would implement a long-awaited restructuring of government, including upgrading the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to a ministry of environmental resources.
According to the draft amendments, the ministry of environmental resources would take over part of the responsibilities that fall under the Council of Agriculture (COA), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).
Those include forestry and wildlife conservation, water and soil conservation, and weather forecasting.
Photo: CNA
Unlike other agencies involved in the restructuring, the proposed environment ministry would be practically an entirely new agency rather than the product of an internal reorganization, Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Minister Jay Shih (施能傑) told a news conference in Taipei.
The Central Weather Bureau would become a central weather administration under the environment ministry, the draft amendments say.
EPA agencies in charge of regulating toxic substances and conducting environmental inspections are to become the toxic substances and chemicals administration and the environmental management bureau.
A new research institute of biodiversity and forest protection is also to be created under the new environment ministry, Shih said.
Water management tasks relating to economic development — including the appropriation of water for industrial use and river remediation projects — would remain within the purview of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, he said.
Responding to media queries, EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) denied that the proposed new ministry would be a “grand ministry,” saying its budget is likely to be far smaller than the budgets allocated to the MOTC, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of National Defense.
The tasks of the new ministry — responding to climate change and cutting carbon dioxide emissions — would be highly challenging, meaningful and in line with global trends, he said, as he thanked employees at the other agencies for their willingness to become part of the new ministry.
According to the amendments, the interior ministry would continue to govern national parks, a proposal that Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) lauded, saying that it is “better equipped” to take care of the parks, especially when it comes to formulating construction management and urban renewal plans.
The draft amendments also seek to adjust the responsibilities of the Construction and Planning Agency, which is expected to be become a national land management administration.
The amendments also propose upgrading the COA to a ministry of agriculture with three new agencies.
They are the water resources agency for farming communities and irrigation, the agricultural services and financing administration, and the agricultural science parks management office.
The proposed amendments embody the “final piece of the puzzle” for restructuring the government, Shih said.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS