Has your company obtained a pollution discharge permit?

Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Department explains the \"Implementation Plan for the Permit System for Controlling Pollutant Emissions\" November 22, 2016, China Chang’an Net. Original title: Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Department explains the \"Implementation Plan for the Permit System for Controlling Pollutant Emissions\" – Strengthening enterprises’ responsibilities to advance more refined environmental management. Zhao Yingmin, Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Department, explains the \"Implementation Plan for the Permit System for Controlling Pollutant Emissions\". The General Office of the State Council recently issued the \"Implementation Plan for the Permit System for Controlling Pollutant Emissions\", calling for the orderly issuance of pollution discharge permits and the strict enforcement of environmental protection responsibilities on part of enterprises and institutions. Zhao Yingmin, vice minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, gave an interview to Xinhua News Agency reporters on the details of the plan on the 21st. Question: What issues should the implementation plan focus on addressing? Answer: Since the late 1980s, China has gradually started piloting the emission permit system in various regions, issuing emission permits to around 240,000 enterprises and institutions, with initial positive results achieved. Overall, however, the pollution permit system has not played a significant role in urging enterprises and institutions to assume their primary responsibility for pollution control, and environmental protection agencies have failed to carry out supervision in accordance with these permits. By reforming the pollutant emission permit system, it is necessary to establish a streamlined, efficient, and smoothly coordinated environmental management system for fixed sources. Develop the emission permit system as the core mechanism for environmental management of fixed pollution sources, integrate it with the environmental impact assessment system and the total emission control system, provide unified pollution emission data for tasks such as emission fee collection, environmental statistics, and emission rights trading, reduce duplicate reporting, and alleviate the burden on enterprises and institutions. Secondly, it is necessary to promote the fulfillment of the primary responsibility of enterprises and institutions for pollution control. Emissions of various pollutants such as air and water pollutants by these entities should be regulated and controlled in a unified manner, through a \"single-certification\" system. Enterprises are required to discharge pollutants in accordance with the regulations set out in their certificates, to carry out self-monitoring, keep records, submit regular reports, and disclose information. Penalties for those who discharge pollutants without a certificate or in violation of the regulations should be increased, so as to encourage enterprises to comply with the laws out of their own willingness rather than because they are forced to do so. Third, standardize regulatory enforcement to improve the precision of environmental management. Implement the system of \"one certificate per enterprise\" and comprehensive licensing, focusing environmental law enforcement inspections on the supervision of discharge permits.

Question: How can enterprises and institutions fulfill their environmental protection responsibilities through emission permits? Answer: Emission permits will become the sole administrative permit for emissions during the production and operation of enterprises and institutions, as well as the main legal document governing their oversight by environmental protection authorities. It can be said that all legal requirements regarding the discharge of water and air pollutants by enterprises and institutions are specified in the pollution discharge permits. First, enterprises must discharge pollutants in accordance with the regulations. Enterprises and institutions should apply for pollution discharge permits in a timely manner and make them public, committing to discharge pollutants in accordance with the requirements set out in those permits and to enforce such requirements strictly, so as to ensure that the types, concentrations, and amounts of pollutants discharged meet the permitted standards. Second is to implement self-monitoring and regular reporting. Enterprises should carry out self-monitoring in accordance with the law to ensure the legality and validity of the data, properly keep the original records, establish accurate and complete environmental management records, and those equipped with online monitoring devices should be connected to the environmental protection authorities. Report regularly and truthfully to the environmental protection authorities on the implementation of the emission permit. Third is to make pollutant emission data public to society and be responsible for the accuracy of such data. In this way, the responsibilities of enterprises become clear, and they are also distributed fairly. Companies that emit more pollutants or cause greater environmental damage must assume greater responsibility for environmental remediation, while those with a good record of environmental compliance and a strong sense of responsibility will benefit increasingly. Question: What changes will this reform of the pollution discharge permit system bring to public oversight? Answer: The pollution discharge permit system will promote public oversight in two main ways. First is to achieve informatization. **By 2017, a national management information platform for pollution discharge permits is to be basically established. Processes such as the application, issuance, and supervision/enforcement related to pollution discharge permits, along with relevant information, will be incorporated into this platform. Uniform coding will be applied to pollution discharge permits as well as to a enterprises’ main pollution-generating facilities and emission points, with efforts being made to gradually improve the data on the timing and location of emissions from fixed pollution sources. Second, increase the transparency of information in terms of institutional arrangements. In addition to publicly available corporate information, **regulatory and enforcement information is released in a timely manner; environmental protection agencies also publish lists of enterprises and institutions that discharge pollutants without a permit or in violation of the permits issued to them, and these are taken into account in the credit assessment of companies’ environmental performance.

Question: How can the issuance of pollution discharge permits be carried out in a standardized and orderly manner? Answer: First, it is necessary to clarify the scope of pollution discharge permit management. We will formulate and publish a list for the classified management of emission permits, specifying the industry sectors subject to such management as well as the scale of enterprises and institutions. Second, the implementation is carried out in a sector-specific and phased manner. At the end of 2016, reforms related to emission permits were introduced first in the thermal power and papermaking industries; pilot programs in these areas were also carried out in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region for the steel and cement industries, while pilot programs for the petrochemical industry were conducted in Hainan, laying the foundation for their implementation across the country. In 2017, emission permits were to be issued to key industrial enterprises identified under the Ten Measures for Air Pollution Control and the Ten Measures for Water Pollution Control. By 2020, the issuance of pollution discharge permits for various industries will be largely completed. Third, in terms of organizational structure, it reflects **coordinated planning and local promotion**. In line with the principle that those who issue permits are also responsible for their supervision, the actual task of issuing permits should be delegated more to local environmental protection departments, so that pollution discharge permits can be issued promptly to enterprises and institutions that meet the requirements. The management aspects uniformly specified in discharge permits currently mainly include water pollutants and air pollutants; local authorities are encouraged to include solid waste and noise under the management framework of discharge permits in accordance with the law.

In 2017, the issuance of pollution discharge permits for enterprises in key industries and those suffering from overcapacity was completed, and a national management information platform for pollution discharge permits was established; by 2020, the issuance of such permits had been largely completed across the country

There’s a change; that’s good. It’s becoming more and more standardized. It must be strictly enforced.

Can this also be used as collateral for a mortgage?