The Research Of Local Government's Function In Environmental Protection Institution Construction

With China's rapid economic development, the rigorous situation of environment problem is being paid more and more attention by the government and people. Undoubtedly, to resolve this problem we should start with the institution, but how to found efficient environmental protection institution is facing two choices: depend on market mechanism or government control. The"market failure"gives the reason of intervention for the government. Therefore, the government has to take on the heavy responsibility of the environmental protection institution construction. Though central government emphasize environmental protection must be synchronous in establishing economy development strategy again and again, also point out early that only adhere to the"Scientific Outlook on Development", can we construct a society with population, resources and environment harmony coexistence. But we can infer from the recently frequent occurrence of the environment incident that environmental protection institution construction is lagging behind badly and environment policies are not been carried out completely in some local governments. By using the Institutional Economics theories and learning from experience of local government environment protection, this paper analyzes China's local governments'functions and principles in construction of the environmental protection institution, and then put a few related institutional construction measures according to the functions and principles.The first part of this paper introduces the related concept about institution and the characteristics of environment resources. The institution includes institution arrangement and institution environment, etc. Institution, namely institutional arrangement, refers to a series of behavior rules followed by everyone in society. The aggregation of basic rules about politics, society and law, which administer economy and politics activities, (such as the rule of vote, property, contract rights) form the institutional circumstances. But before analyzing environment institution, it is necessary to learn the characteristics of environment resources. There are three characteristics of environment resources: scarce, public, externality. Among them, public and externality influence environment institution construction largely.The second part of this paper analyzes the relationship between environmental protection institution constitution and government function. The environmental protection institution system includes environment law institution, environment administration institution, environment society institution, environment economic institution. These institutions' construction represents the government's function in four ways: promoting economy development, taking charge of a market running, managing public affairs and protecting resources and environment. The relationship between environmental protection institution and government function is: the government function provides scope and reason for the environment institution construction and the environmental protection institution construction has an active effect on the implement of government function.The third part of this paper discusses the"Government Failure"problem in local government's environmental protection institution construction, and analyzes the function reasons for the"Government Failure". The"Government Failure"in the environmental protection refer to that the government's activities does not improve environment quality but cause quality depravation on the contrary. The"Government Failure"in environment problem includes environment policy failure and environment management failure. Among them, environment policy failure means that the policies formed by government reflects private cost of distorting environment resources usage or allocation, but damages the society property institution thus influences effect allocation of environment resources. This kind of failure can divided into three levels: item policy failure, department policy failure and country macro policy failure. Environment management failure means that there are a series of management problem in different level governments in the process of environment management, these problem's existence result in the failure of policy implement. It includes two aspects: coordination failure in government departments and between governments; Rent-seeking activities. These are a lot of reasons for these government failures, but the most essential one is government function problem. With regard to the failure in environmental protection institution construction of China's local government, there are three causes: the excess expansion of economy function, the serious falling behind of public affair management institution supply function and the lack of environmental protection education function.Based on the previous analysis, the fourth part of this paper points out the meaning of institution construction of the local government's environmental protection, and then analyzes China's local governments'functions and principled in the institution construction, and then put a few related institutional construction measures according to the functions and principles. Under the market economy conditions, it is a correct choose and consequential demand that the government should change administration function into public management function. In the environmental protection institution construction, the chief principles of local government function change are: from omnipotent government to limited government, from control government to service government. The first change again can be divided into three aspects: put"market"to the market, leave"enterprise"to the enterprise and return"society"to the society. The second change can be divided into two aspects: form control to service, from official-oriented people to people-oriented. According to the above two principles, only by working hard in the following jobs: promote district cooperation, reform government management institution, adjust industry policy, innovate in pollutants emission charge institution and perfect people participant mechanism, can our local government hope to found a effective environmental protection institution.