Premier William Lai’s (賴清德) flip-flopping on the planned coal-fired Shenao Power Plant project shows that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration is not taking its energy policy seriously, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday, urging voters to teach the DPP a lesson at the polls on Nov. 24.
“With merely 40 days left before the elections, Lai’s decision to suspend the Shenao project is not only clearly the result of electoral calculations, but is also a slap in his own face,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said in a statement.
Lai yesterday told a plenary legislative session that as the third liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Taoyuan’s Guantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區) would generate sufficient energy after its completion, he would back the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ decision to halt the Shenao project.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Since March, Lai has repeatedly stressed the necessity of building the Shenao plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), even saying that the plant would be using “clean coal,” Hung said, adding that it made his U-turn all the more preposterous.
“This shows that [President] Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is treating its energy policy as a trifling matter and everything is about elections,” Hung said. “How could the public have faith in this kind of government?”
As the Tsai administration is likely to change its policy again after the nine-in-one elections, the public should teach the DPP a lesson by voting in support of a referendum opposing the plant initiated by the KMT, Hung said.
KMT Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) launched a referendum drive asking: “Do you agree with the implementation of an energy policy that halts the construction and expansion of any coal-fired power plants or generators (including the Shenao Power Plant upgrade project)?”
The referendum is to be held alongside the elections after it managed to collect 313,165 valid signatures, more than the second-phase threshold of 281,745 signatures.
Under the Referendum Act (公民投票法), for a referendum to pass, at least one-quarter of the 19.79 million eligible voters must cast an affirmative vote and “yes” votes must outnumber “no” votes.
The KMT legislative caucus also attacked the DPP administration, saying that its energy policy is “fraudulent.”
The government’s backtracking on the Shenao plant issue shows that it uses energy policy for politicking, the lawmakers added.
Lai in March vigorously defended the Shenao plant, saying that it would run on “clean coal,” as it would be equipped with supercritical steam generators, bringing its emissions down to the level of a gas-fired power plant, KMT caucus secretary-general William Tseng (曾銘宗) said.
Although the scope of development for the LNG terminal has been reduced from 232 hectares to 23 hectares, a proposed industrial harbor that is part of the project would still destroy the ecologically precious algal reefs in the waters off Taoyuan’s Guanyin (觀音) and Sinwu (新屋) districts, KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) said.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS