Environmental advocates yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to withdraw three bills that would mandate the government to expand the high-speed rail system to the east coast, build an expressway connecting Hualien and Taitung counties, and extend the Shuishalian Freeway (Freeway No. 6) to Hualien.
The bills were hastily proposed and would damage the environment, members of the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and other environmental groups said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called the three bills “money pit” legislation.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), a former Hualien County commissioner, is the main proponent of the proposals, the DPP said.
If passed the bills would cost the nation NT$2 trillion (US$61.97 billion) and the government would be required to finish construction within 10 years, the party said.
The one-month negotiation period for bills involving the around-the-nation high-speed rail system and the Hualien-Taitung expressway have expired, meaning they should have been on the legislative agenda, but are not, it added.
The environmental groups said they opposed the projects, as the risks have yet to be scrutinized under the Budget Act (預算法), the Spatial Planning Act (國土計畫法), the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例), the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (環境影響評估法) and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法).
The KMT should withdraw the bills, they said.
The bills say that the projects must be completed in no more than 10 years, Wild at Heart chairman Chen Hsien-cheng (陳憲政) told a news conference in Taipei.
“The lawmakers who proposed the bills have shown a complete disregard for the time needed to secure approval from the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee, as well as the procedures required to expropriate property,” Chen said. “They set a bad example of the legislative branch infringing on the authority of the executive branch.”
The projects also contravened the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act by not seeking consent from indigenous people, Chen said.
If the projects were built and operated by private contractors before ownership transferred to the government, access to the systems would be controlled by private contractors, he said.
Development projects of this kind would destroy the homes of indigenous people and allow big corporations to control their means of survival, he said.
Taiwan Friends of the Global Greens chairman Lee Chun-hsiang (李春祥) said that the Constitution stipulates that the Legislative Yuan must not propose bills that increase the budget.
“The Administrative Procedure Act (行政程序法) also stipulates that the executive branch, not the legislative branch, has the authority to formulate plans for projects,” Lee said. “The legislature would overstep its authority and infringe on that of the executive branch if it designates projects to be implemented and forces the National Development Council to formulate plans.”
The bills would require the government to allocate a budget without having to adhere to debt ceiling requirements, Chen said.
“The budget would be loosely compiled if the debt ceiling were removed without any compelling reason,” he said. “I am afraid we are leaving debt to our next generation.”
Trust in Nature Foundation chairman Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞賓) said that the bills should be withdrawn because none of them has been reviewed by the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee.
“These projects would have a huge impact on the economy, as well as the social and natural environment in Hualien and Taitung counties,” Chen Jui-pin said.
“Drilling through the Central Mountain Range to build a freeway would destroy many natural habitats. There has been no discussion, and nobody knows which corridor would be used to build the freeway and how much it would cost,” he said. “It is a terrible bill.”
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