On Regulations Concerning The Responsibilities Of Environmental Protection Of Local Governments In The New Environmental Protection Law

Despite of the continuous development of Chinese society and economy,the increasingly significant environmental pollution has introduced more and more intensive attention from the general public to the environmental protection,an issue that has constituted a hot topic among the civil community and led to heated discussion surrounding its subjects in the academic circle.The public,after noticing the important role of local governments played in the environment area,have begun to recognize the concept of local government environmental responsibilities.Local government environmental responsibilities refer to the obligations of the local governments at all levels and the civil servants to optimize the environmental interests by actively enforcing the corresponding authorities and duties according to the relative laws about environmental protection,and to bear the negative and unfavorable legal consequences brought by their benign neglect or improper settlement to the environment condition.Targeting the severe environmental problems in China,the newly revised "Environmental Protection Law" intends to comprehensively standardize the local government environmental responsibilities,which emphasizes,in addition to the obligations and missions of local governments regarding the environmental governance,the penalties towards the practical incompetence of local governments.Compared with the former version,the new "Environmental Protection Law" comprises more specific regulations on the local government environmental responsibilities,including the expanded responsibility range and the hierarchical supervising system.However,disadvantages still remain in the clauses of the new law that regulate the local government environmental responsibilities,mainly embodying the insufficient environmental obligation specifications for local governments,the inadequate provisions that construct the environmental accountability system for governments,and the lack of effective supervision over the local government environmental responsibilities.The legislation ideas and practical experiences in countries like US,Japan and Russia regarding the government environmental responsibilities have demonstrated that the establishment of obligation regulation and system contributes to the linchpin of the implementation of the government environmental responsibilities.Based on the reference to the international experiences and our domestic realities,the local government environmental responsibilities in China shall be complemented by actions of following aspects,namely consummating 1)the responsibility specifications,2)the supervision mechanism,and 3)the accountability system of the local government environmental responsibilities.