Legislators yesterday accused the Environmental Protection Admini-stration (EPA) of wasting taxpayers' money, saying that at least NT$16 billion would be lost if the EPA's waste incinerator policy were to be carried out.
At a meeting convened by the Sanitation and Environment Committee and the Social Welfare Committee, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsu Chung-hsiung (徐中雄) said it was unnecessary to build more incinerators, because only 70 percent of the total capacity of the existing incinerators is being used. The EPA should promote regional cooperation on waste management, rather than building more incinerators, Hsu said.
EPA head Chang Juu-en (
"It's a reasonable revision, because we can't expect waste to just disappear. We have no choice but to manage it," Chang said.
At the meeting, the EPA's policy came under fire from legislators belonging to diverse political parties, including the Democratic Progressive Party's Eugene Jao (
The EPA has been refusing to cancel incinerator projects for years, claiming that contractors would have to be compensated for their losses, but a recent report of the Legislative Yuan's Sustainable Development Committee suggests that this would not really save taxpayers' money.
According to the report, the total cost of seven planned incinerators is about NT$27 billion, which includes the construction and operational costs for 20 years. If these projects were cancelled, the total financial loss would be about NT$10.8 billion, including NT$3.8 billion compensation to contractors and NT$7 billion operation fees for handling the waste for 20 years.
Legislators are planning to officially freeze the NT$3.04 billion budget proposed by the EPA for three months at a meeting on Wednesday. The budget is for the EPA to manage incinerator-related affairs next year.
Chang said that insufficient incinerator capacity would lead to overuse of landfills, which would increase the risk of groundwater contamination.
"Potential environmental risks can't be quantified in terms of money," Chang said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS