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Environmental Protection Departments (Bureaus) of all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, as well as the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps: In order to thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and to strictly comply with the requirements set out in the \"Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Strictly Regulating Administrative Inspections Involving Enterprises\" (Guo Ban Fa [2024] No. 54) as well as the \"Answers to Questions Related to the Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Strictly Regulating Administrative Inspections Involving Enterprises\" issued by the General Office of the Ministry of Justice, efforts are being made to enhance the standardization and accuracy of administrative inspections. This is done to ensure that such inspections in the field of environmental protection are neither excessive nor insufficient, so as to continuously improve environmental quality and optimize the business environment. The relevant matters are hereby notified as follows. I. Strengthen overall planning and advance preparation to carry out routine inspections efficiently; do a good job in coordinating routine inspections. Daily inspections shall not exceed the upper limit on the frequency of annual inspections specified and published by each province (autonomous region, municipality directly under the Central Government). Both the supervision and inspections carried out by business departments and the law enforcement checks conducted by law enforcement agencies fall under the category of administrative inspections. Annual inspection plans should be formulated for each type of inspection, specifying the scope, content, and standards; these plans should be coordinated by designated departments and implemented in a detailed manner on a monthly basis. Conduct comprehensive inspections covering the entire process, all elements, and all stages, with a focus on the emission permit system, and implement the requirement of conducting \"comprehensive inspections once\". Prepare for routine inspections. Before the inspection, it is necessary to gather all relevant basic information about the enterprise, and analyze data related to environmental impact assessments, compliance checks for simultaneous construction of environmental protection facilities, emission permits, handling of hazardous waste, mobile inspections, and administrative penalties. This allows for an assessment of the operational status of the enterprise’s pollution control facilities as well as potential areas of non-compliance, thereby improving the quality and effectiveness of on-site inspections. For matters that can be effectively supervised through off-site methods such as document verification, online checks, and data analysis, on-site inspections will no longer be conducted. II. Strengthen monitoring, early warning, and traceability efforts, and conduct targeted case inspections; enhance off-site supervision and enforcement of key pollution sources. Make full use of monitoring methods for the operating conditions of production and management facilities such as power consumption, energy usage, and video systems to enhance real-time monitoring capabilities, ensuring that the status of equipment operation is clear and the effectiveness of pollution control can be tracked. Establish sound procedural rules and standards for off-site supervision; when early-warning conditions are met, timely alerts should be issued to help enterprises take proactive corrective actions, and efforts should be made to develop online mechanisms for such corrections ; Clarify the procedures for transitioning from off-site supervision to on-site inspections, and conduct targeted on-site inspections when the conditions for initiating such inspections are met. Strengthen the monitoring and tracing of ecological environment quality. Accelerate the establishment of an integrated \"air, space, land, and sea\" monitoring network. It is encouraged to install more low-cost environmental quality monitoring devices in key areas where the ecological environment is sensitive, pollution sources are relatively concentrated, and violations occur frequently, in order to enhance prediction and early warning capabilities. When there are abnormal fluctuations in the monitoring data of ecological and environmental quality, it is necessary to make full use of the advantages of equipment such as distributed monitoring stations, drones, mobile vehicles, portable law enforcement detectors, and water quality fingerprinting devices to identify the pollution sources and their spread boundaries, and to carry out targeted investigations to avoid comprehensive and indiscriminate inspections. Strengthen the punishment for malicious illegal acts. Make full use of technical methods such as satellite remote sensing and drone inspections to identify potential routes for illegal waste discharge in advance, thereby enabling accurate detection and handling of such illegal activities. We must focus on handling those cases where the consequences of illegal activities are severe and where there is clear intentional malice. We shall take strict action against practices such as setting up hidden pipelines or using caves and cracks to discharge pollutants secretly, altering or falsifying data from automatic monitoring systems, discharging pollutants in phases during rainy weather, operating pollution control facilities improperly, failing to implement emergency control measures during periods of severe air pollution, and illegally transporting or dumping hazardous waste. For inspections that are urgent and need to be carried out on the spot, they can be reported promptly via phone or other means, with the approval procedures completed afterward once the inspection is finished. Encourage the recognition of those who handle major and significant cases. III. Conduct thorough analysis and evaluation, as well as necessary approvals and record-keeping, to carry out special inspections in a compliant manner; special inspections should only be carried out when it is legal and necessary. In response to the prominent ecological and environmental problems or potential risks in this region, special inspections can be carried out in accordance with the law. For industries and enterprises in the region that are concentrated, typical, and pose high pollution risks, it is necessary to strengthen coordination with departments such as electricity, water supply, transportation, and taxation, and explore the development of analysis and early-warning models. Analyze the content of complaints and reports submitted by the public to identify, in a timely manner, those widespread and recurring issues that trigger strong concern among the public. Strictly implement the requirements for special inspections. Strictly control the number, scope, content, and timeline of special inspections, with an emphasis on practical results. A inspection plan shall be prepared in advance, approved by the government at or above the county level or the higher-level administrative authority responsible for vertical management, filed as required, and made public. Special inspections assigned by higher authorities can be carried out without the need for repeated approval or documentation, and are not subject to the maximum frequency limits for annual inspections set in the local area ; Conduct special inspections as mandated at this level, which are counted toward the annual inspection frequency. IV. Strengthen hierarchical, categorized, and differentiated supervision, and allocate law enforcement resources reasonably. Enhance the hierarchical management of entities subject to inspection. Improve and dynamically update the database of entities subject to administrative inspections, ensuring that all entities under supervision are included. Based on the pollution discharge permit management categories and the results of corporate credit evaluations, the entities to be inspected are scientifically classified, with adjustments made dynamically according to the companies’ compliance with regulations. Strengthen the application of grading results. Based on the enterprise classification results, different sampling ratios and frequencies should be set appropriately to implement differentiated supervision. The grading results should be integrated seamlessly with the positive list system for supervision and law enforcement; for enterprises included in the positive list and meeting the conditions for off-site supervision, no on-site inspections shall be conducted in principle if there are no relevant indications of violations. Strengthen labeled management. Labels are comprehensively established based on factors such as the distribution area of the inspected entities, industry type, types of pollutants emitted, production scale, monitoring type, inspection records, violation records, and complaints received, and they are specifically maintained and dynamically updated. By creating a precise “profile” of the inspection subject, it provides a basis for comprehensively coordinating on-site inspection activities. V. Strictly regulate the conduct of administrative inspections to protect the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises; standardize the procedures for initiating such inspections. Strengthen the management and qualification review of inspection entities. Daily inspections should be planned, case-by-case inspections should have leads, and special inspections require approval. Higher-level authorities may organize lower-level authorities within their administrative jurisdictions to carry out cross-regional law enforcement, and it is strictly prohibited to conduct inspections in other locations in violation of regulations. Standardize the conduct of administrative inspections. To carry out administrative inspections, an inspection plan must be formulated and submitted for approval by the person in charge of the administrative law enforcement agency; it cannot be approved solely by the head of an internal department. When conducting administrative inspections, an administrative inspection notice or code must be issued, law enforcement credentials must be shown, and records of the inspection process and its results must be kept. After the inspection, the results should be communicated to the company promptly. Ensure smooth channels for reporting administrative law enforcement violations related to enterprises, and establish and improve mechanisms for handling such reports. Actively promote joint inspections. Where routine inspections, case-specific inspections, and special inspections can be carried out in a coordinated manner, they should be conducted together. If environmental protection agencies at different levels all have inspection plans for the same entity, they shall, after timely consultation, either conduct inspections independently or carry out joint inspections. Promote cross-departmental joint supervision and law enforcement, pay close attention to conflicts in inspection standards across different sectors, and actively coordinate to resolve them, so as to prevent companies from being at a loss.