The top environmental watchdog took the unprecedented step of blacklisting
four major power plants and four cities yesterday for performing poorly on their
environmental impact assessments (EIAs).
"All new projects launched by
the four plants and in the four cities will be halted by the SEPA (State
Environmental Protection Administration)," said Pan Yue, the spokesman for SEPA
and a vice-minister.
"This is the first time for SEPA to use such a
strict measure to punish whole industries and some local
administrations."
The four power plants are Datang International Power
Generation Co Ltd, China Huaneng Group, China Huadian Corporation and China
Guodian Corporation. Of the country's top five power plants, only China Power
Investment Corporation survived the blacklist.
The four cities are
Tangshan in Hebei Province, Luliang in Shanxi Province, Liupanshui in Guizhou Province and Laiwu in Shandong Province.
"The cities do not have the
environmental capacity to handle more pollutants," Pan said. "And yet they still
develop industries that consume a lot of resources and produce a lot of
pollution."
Tangshan, for example, has reached its limit for pollution,
but it still built 70 steel plants last year, 80 percent of which failed their
EIAs. These plants represented only part of the problems uncovered by the SEPA's
latest inspection of EIAs. Eighty-two projects representing an investment of
more than 112 billion yuan ($14 billion) had been found to lack effective
environmental protection measures. Most of them were in the steel, power,
chemical and metallurgical industries.
"China missed its goals of making
a 4 percent cut in the amount of energy it consumes and a 2 percent cut in
emissions of pollutants in 2006," Pan said.
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