The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said that “vintage” two-stroke scooters would be exempt from new emission standards after their owners agreed to abide by restrictions on their use.
The agency has reached a consensus with representatives of vintage two-stroke scooter owners on the restrictions, EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) told a news conference in Taipei.
The EPA appears to have backed down because of escalating opposition, despite EPA Deputy Minister Chan Shun-kuei (詹順貴) earlier this week saying that it would not cave in to pressure to change its policy.
The newly amended Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法) promulgated on Aug. 1 empowers the EPA to tighten emission standards for vehicles more than 10 years old and local governments to demarcate air quality restricted areas, sparking concern that the new policy might force people to buy new vehicles.
The National Alliance Against a Ban on Two-Stroke Scooters had staged many protests against the plan, but alliance members told the news conference yesterday that they would stop the protests and regulate themselves.
The group presented a self-regulatory convention, which states that scooters must be regularly maintained and receive regular emission tests; that they would not be used as a daily means of transportation; that they would not be used when air quality is forecast to be bad; and that they would not enter air quality restricted areas.
The alliance will continue deliberating with the EPA on the definition of vintage scooters, spokesperson Lo Yi (羅宜) said.
Nearly 100,000 two-stroke scooters might be covered by the convention, the alliance’s northern branch convener Ray Liu (劉子睿) said.
The EPA also met with representatives of diesel cars and promised to subsidize economically disadvantaged people to replace old cars, Lee said.
Eliminating old diesel cars should not be the agency’s job alone, as it also affects the policies of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Taxation Administration, National Federation of Container Transportation Unions secretary-general Lee Chao-kung (李昭功) said.
The government should reduce the 15 percent commodity tax on imported trucks, which would be more effective than any subsidy plans, he said, urging concerned agencies to negotiate the matter.
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
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
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