A question-and-answer session at the legislature in Taipei which Premier William Lai (賴清德) had been scheduled to attend was canceled yesterday as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators occupied the speaker’s podium and continued their protests against the approval of Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower) plan to expand a coal-fired power plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳).
Shouting slogans, KMT legislators demanded that the approval of the environmental impact assessment on a new Shenao (深澳) Power Plant be revoked.
Taipower should hold public hearings to gauge public opinion about the project and the government should hold a national energy conference to review the nation’s energy policy, they said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) and Deputy Minister Thomas Chan (詹順貴) should step down for allowing a project to pass that would exacerbate the poor air quality in New Taipei City, they said.
Chan, who presided over the review, cast the deciding vote that approved the project when Environmental Impact Assessment Committee members were tied at eight votes for and against.
Chan cannot override the law, KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said, in reference to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration’s proposed amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣汙染防制法), which have been prioritized by the Cabinet for review during the current legislative session.
The DPP has contradicted itself by first saying that it would make efforts to combat air pollution and then passing a review to restart a coal-fired power plant, Lin said.
With the air pollution problem in central and southern Taiwan still unresolved, the DPP now wants to add more air pollution to northern Taiwan, KMT caucus secretary-general Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said, adding that the government is increasing the nation’s power generation at the cost of people’s health.
The Shenao Power Plant, built in 1957, first began operations in 1960. It was shuttered in 2007 and then demolished.
Taipower began constructing a new plant, equipped with ultra-supercritical steam generators, and plans to have it operational in 2025.
The proposed new plant's emissions would be two-thirds less than the original plant, according to the EPA.
In response to media queries about the criticism, Lai said the ultra-supercritical units would allow emissions at the plant to be brought down to about the same level as that of a natural gas power station.
Lai added that Chan, a prominent environmentalist before assuming his post, has both the conscience of a social activist and the professionalism of a lawyer who used to represent residents who were affected by air pollution in lawsuits filed against developers.
The Executive Yuan would ensure that inspections of emissions at the Shenao plant would be enforced, he added.
This story has been corrected since it was first published to show that the original Shenao Power Plant was torn down in 2007.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods