Cabinet firm in freeway battle

The executive and legislative branches are at odds again as the Cabinet yesterday dismissed the legislature's transportation and budget committees' resolution that the construction of the Suao-Hualien freeway can neither be delayed nor scrapped.

"The construction project will be delayed for three months because that's the decision made by the premier and the wish of local environmentalists," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. "Besides, it doesn't make any sense nor is it appropriate for the legislature to tell us when to begin a construction project."

Lin the remarks yesterday afternoon in response to the resolution reached by the transportation and budget committees, which reviewed the annual budget of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

In addition to requesting that the project not be delayed or scrapped, the committees requested that the Hualien County Government map out supplementary measures in a bid to strike a balance between the county's economic development and transportation construction.

The proposal was proposed by People First Party (PFP) Legislator Cheng Chin-ling (鄭金玲). Her proposal was endorsed by eight lawmakers across party lines.

Lin yesterday that it is necessary to give the county time to negotiate with local environmentalists and map out supplementary measures.

"Three months is not long. I'm afraid if we don't take care of the problem now, it might spiral into a political incident," he said.

Facing from environmentalists, Premier Yu Shyi-kun announced last Tuesday that the Cabinet will delay construction of the 86km freeway connecting Suao, Ilan County and Hualien County for three months, despite his earlier pledge to begin the NT$96.2 billion project by the end of the year.

Yu the decision in response to a request by Hualien County Commissioner Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山), who claimed that the county needs more time to map out supplementary plans and that the freeway may damage the environment.

Irked what they saw as a Cabinet U-turn, opposition lawmakers have charged that the project was put on hold for political gain in an attempt to attract votes from environmentalists.

The idea of constructing a freeway in eastern Taiwan was first proposed by the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in 1990 as part of a plan to build an island-wide freeway system.

The KMT government mapped out the plan for the Suao-Hualien freeway in January 2000, two months before the DPP won the presidential election.

The Environmental Protection Administration approved an impact study in June 2000, and the DPP administration announced in December last year that construction would start this month.