The two new Cabinet appointees who will be most closely involved with the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四) continued yesterday to demonstrate their strong support for the resumption of the project.
Former Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) head Lin Jun-yi (林俊義) yesterday handed over the reins of leadership to Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), saying that success in environmental protection work depended not on any particular individual but on a "professional team like the EPA staff."
The decision on whether or not to redo the nuclear plant's environmental impact assessment (EIA) is now one of the big challenges facing Hau.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Yesterday afternoon Hau visited the different party caucuses in the legislature to solicit support for himself in his new position as EPA head.
DPP legislators, however, reminded Hau of the need to be impartial when he considers the assessment.
When Hau announced that he would take the EPA post on March 4, he stressed that his support for the resumption of construction of the plant would not waver.
Hau later responded to the DPP legislators' remarks at the New Party caucus office.
He said he wanted to stress that "on the EIA issue, the EPA will behave in accordance with the law."
It had previously been widely reported that Hau had said that he would not consider redoing the plant's assessment because he believed that calls for it to be redone were simply a delaying tactic on the part of the DPP.
Since the Cabinet reshuffle was finalized, the DPP caucus in the Legislative Yuan has called upon both Hau and new Atomic Energy Council (AEC) Chairman Hu Chin-piao (胡錦標) to take heed of censures related to the plant issued by the Control Yuan in 1999.
That Taipower (
The appointment of Cabinet figures in favor of the plant has further reduced the likelihood that the decision to resume construction will be reversed.
AEC Chairman Hu said yesterday that a planned final repository for low-level radioactive waste on Wuchiu island (烏坵鄉), Kinmen County, might be one solution to the waste problems.
Hu said that AEC officials were confident in radioactive waste disposal technologies and that he would seek support for the plan from Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
In terms of environmental protection, however, whether Taipower will receive approval for the repository remains to be seen.
The EPA reviewed the assessment for the repository on March 5 for the first time.
However, because the meeting was chaired by a former EPA political appointee, deputy administrator James Lee (李界木), who was about to step down with former EPA head Lin, no final decision was made.
The EPA's EIA committee members, however, told the Taipei Times yesterday that most of them were far from satisfied with the assessment proposal.
They demanded that Taipower supply further information within one month.
"Some of us actually suggested in the meeting that the report should have been killed," Yang Chao-yueh (楊肇岳), one of the committee members, told the Taipei Times.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS