At the request of lawmakers, the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) will conduct a survey to assess the public’s views on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) within one month and release its results in the next two weeks.
The motion that demanded an official survey was sponsored mostly by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and was approved at a meeting of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday.
The request came amid mounting calls for the government to rescind its decision to put the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to a referendum and order an immediate halt to its construction following major anti-nuclear demonstrations on Sunday that attracted as many as 200,000 people nationwide.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
According to the approved proposal, the commission, which is in charge of large-scale national public opinion polls on government policy, has to complete the survey within one month and send the questionnaire and its results to the legislature within the next two weeks.
RDEC Minister Sung Yu-hsieh (宋餘俠) that requested three or four months to perform the task, but that timetable was not accepted by lawmakers.
“Don’t procrastinate any longer. [A decision on the issue] has to be fast and clear, otherwise the issue will continue to consume the nation and the public,” said KMT Legislator Liao Cheng-ching (廖正井), who is co-chair of the commission.
If the survey finds that more than 50 percent of survey respondents would vote in favor of halting construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, then there would be no need to have a referendum, Liao said.
In response to lawmakers, Sung said that the commission has not yet carried out a poll specifically related to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, but said that some related questions had been included in previous surveys.
He refused to reveal details of the previous polls.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻) said that recent polls released by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research and Taiwan Thinktank, Sunday’s rally and public opinion as presented by the media have all shown “overwhelming popular support for the construction [of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant] to be halted.”
“If the RDEC is to conduct a survey, make sure that you refrain from asking leading questions that would mean survey results that do not reflect public opinion,” Wu said.
More KMT lawmakers have joined calls for the government to halt construction of the plant.
KMT Legislator Wang Huei-mei (王惠美) said that Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has suggested the possibility of the government halting construction.
The commission should present a survey on the issue to the Cabinet so that it may consider whether to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, Wang said.
A study published by online booking platform Expedia revealed searches for travel to Taipei have ballooned 2,786 percent following the lifting of COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions due to the city being a “designation dupe” for Seoul. The TikTok trend for duping — referring to substituting a designation for a more inexpensive alternative — helped propel interest in Taipei, it said in a consumer survey titled “Unpack ‘24,” which was conducted from September to October in 14 countries. Location dupes are “every bit as delightful as the tried-and-true places travelers love,” Expedia trend tracker Melanie Fish said of the year’s popular alternatives, which
SAFETY IN REGULATION: The proposal states that Chiayi should assess whether it is viable to establish such a district and draft rules to protect clients and sex workers The Chiayi City Council passed a motion yesterday to assess the viability of establishing a regulated red-light district. The council yesterday held its last session of the year, at which its fiscal 2024 budget was approved, along with 61 other proposals. The proposal to assess the viability of establishing a red-light district was put forward by independent Chiayi City Councilor Molly Yen (顏色不分藍綠支持性專區顏色田慎節). The proposal cited 2011 amendments to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulate that city and county governments can pass autonomous regulations on the sex trade to manage the industry and guarantee industry workers’ rights. A ban on the
CHINA illness surge: Of 88 travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau with respiratory symptoms who were encouraged to get tested upon arrival, 70.6% had the flu Two hundred and sixty people with COVID-19 were hospitalized and 31 deaths related to the virus were reported last week — the highest numbers in four weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that cases are expected to peak next month. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said that of the 260 people hospitalized last week with moderate to severe COVID-19, 98 percent had not received the Omicron XBB.1.5-adapted COVID-19 vaccine. Among the people hospitalized this year, 78 percent were aged 65 or older, while most of the those who were hospitalized or died have or had
A small-scale protest that called on the government to cancel its plan to welcome Indian migrant workers in a bid to tackle Taiwan’s labor shortage was held in Taipei yesterday. During the protest, comprised of a few dozen people staged in front of the Presidential Office on Ketagalan Boulevard, the protest’s chief initiator, a woman identified only as “Yuna” said they wanted the central government to reconsider allowing migrant workers from India to enter Taiwan. Most people in Taiwan had little knowledge about the potential plan to allow in Indian migrant workers until a report in the media last month, she
RSS