The proportion of new environmental impact assessment (EIA) committee appointees with engineering backgrounds is inappropriately high, environmental groups told a news conference yesterday, urging the appointees to decline the offer.
The Ministry of Environment on Monday last week unveiled the list of newly appointed EIA committee members, with half of the 14 non-governmental members reappointed from the previous term.
Of the 14 appointees, nine have an environmental engineering background, and one has a background in ocean engineering, together accounting for 71 percent, Air Clean Taiwan founder Yeh Guang-perng (葉光芃) said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭?明) in his first appointment of EIA committee members concentrated power to engineers while wiping out medical care and public health representation, Yeh said.
The list also lacks non-governmental climate representatives, he said, adding that an ecology representative’s ability to serve as an environmental guardian would be highly doubted.
Some appointees are known to have acted as “environmental killers” in supporting controversial construction projects or helped cover up misconduct, he said.
An EIA committee with most members with an engineering background could drive Taiwan into an environmentally dark age, he said.
Therefore, environmental groups in southern, central and northern Taiwan gathered to protest the “unprecedentedly autocratic” list of EIA committee members, he said.
The protests would only increase if the authorities ignore the problem, he added.
Waimushan Conservation Action convener Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) said that National Taiwan Ocean University ocean engineering professor Chien Lien-kwei (簡連貴), who had been the EIA meeting president during the initial EIA review of the Hsieh-ho Power Plant conversion project and allegedly changed the meeting room without notifying the attending environmental groups, was reappointed.
Chien forcefully conducted the EIA review in line with the government’s policy and refused to listen to different opinions, he said, adding that he was afraid the same “legal violence” would be exerted at other projects’ EIA reviews.
Only two of the appointees have a background in ecology, the fewest in committee history, Taiwan Academy of Ecology director Yang Kuo-cheng (楊國禎) said.
More than half of the appointees had been part of a previous EIA committee, Government Watch Alliance chief executive officer Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said.
This would be Chien’s fifth appointment since 2013, Hsu said, adding that only three of the appointees were brand new committee members
Peng yesterday said he would respect environmental groups, but they should also respect the appointees’ backgrounds without prejudice.
Committee members must abide by rules for conflict of interests, and decisions must be made through deliberation, which is not autocratic, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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