The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday that any proposed industry-related government policy must first undergo an environmental impact study before being submitted for review and approval to the Executive Yuan or other government agencies.
The EPA also said that any city zoning projects that involves more than 10 hectares of land would also have to submit an environmental impact report (EIR).
Liu Chug-chun (劉佳鈞), deputy director general of the EPA's Department of Comprehensive Plan-ning, said that these amendments to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act for Government Policies (政府政策環境評估作業辦法) achieved two breakthroughs.
In the past, only government policies that needed the Cabi-net's approval were required to submit an EIR. The amendment, however, calls for policies that need to be approved by any central government agency to submit an EIR as well.
Another breakthrough, according to Liu, is that the law can help resolve any controversy involving environmental concerns.
Liu added that the EPA would ask the government to consider the opinions of local environmental protection groups.
"The main purpose of the amendment is to facilitate dialogues between government agencies and local interest groups," Liu said.
Liu added that the policy would not affect the evaluation of any current investments, including the Formosa Plastics Group's steel plant and Chinese Petroleum Corp's petrochemical plant.
The new regulation also will not apply to government projects that have already been launched, such as the Suhua Highway connecting Ilan and Hualian counties and Yunlin's Hushan Dam.
Liu also identified policies that will be affected by the new rule, including those related to energy-intensive industries, preservation of water resources, cross-island highways and railway systems.
Liu said, however, that while the reports will be submitted to the government agencies in charge of the execution of the policies for consideration, they will not be given a stamp of approval or disapproval.
"Of course [the government agencies] can ignore the content of the review and go ahead and approve the policy," Liu said, "but they will have to bear the risk of approving potentially unpopular policy."
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications applauded the EPA's move, adding that as the amendments seek to encourage cooperation among government agencies, they should help the ministry in winning endorsements from other government agencies for its construction projects.
"In the short run, however, the amendment will not have a major effect on us," said Lee Tai-ming (李泰明), the director-general of the Department of Railways and Highways, as ongoing projects have already undergone environmental impact studies.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching