The EIA industry welcomes the rectification storm again

　　China News Weekly reporter / Zhou Qunfeng

　　Published in the 1054th issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on August 1, 2022

　　A press conference brought public attention to the rectification of the EIA market again.

　　On July 21, at a regular press conference held by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Liu Zhiquan, director of the EIA Department, introduced that from the normalized review of EIA documents across the country, although the EIA documents are shoddy and falsified, it is an individual case, but the nature is extremely bad. , the damage to the credibility of the EIA system is very serious.

　　He said that since last year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has guided ecological and environmental departments at all levels across the country to strengthen regular supervision, and has included 265 units and 217 people with problems such as the quality of EIA documents on the EIA "blacklist" or a deadline for rectification.

　　According to Liu Zhiquan, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has conducted a comprehensive investigation of the EIA units and EIA engineers (hereinafter referred to as EIAs) that have established integrity files on the EIA credit platform, and has conducted a comprehensive inspection of more than 8,000 EIA units and more than 14,000 EIA engineers. , Check one by one, and resolutely clean up "empty shell" EIA companies without technical capabilities, EIA analysts with "affiliation" and other violations, as well as units and personnel with problems with the basic information of integrity files.

At present, all localities are speeding up the completion of the processing and punishment work.

　　EIA chaos is closely related to "shell" EIA companies and affiliated EIA analysts.

Why does the EIA industry breed a large number of "shell" companies?

And why do you rely on Cheng Feng?

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has made it clear that after the cleanup, what impact will it have on the industry?

The proliferation of "shell" companies

　　Liu Zhiquan said that EIA, as a system for preventing environmental pollution and ecological damage at the source, has been highly valued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council since it was introduced into my country in the 1970s, and it has been established as a basic system for environmental management.

With the promulgation of the EIA Law in 2002 as a milestone, my country's EIA legal system has been continuously optimized and improved, and a management system with Chinese characteristics has been gradually formed.

　　Wang Canfa, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law and the chairman of the board of supervisors of the Chinese Society for Environmental Science, told China News Weekly that after the EIA qualification was cancelled, the entry threshold for EIA agencies was greatly lowered.

In this context, some people rushed forward and registered a large number of EIA companies.

However, there are no registered EIAs in the company, and many companies have become "shell" companies.

　　Wang Canfa believes that there will be little resistance to the clean-up of "shell" EIA companies, because these companies are basically not founded by the government.

However, in the process of cleaning, there are also some difficulties.

For example, some EIAs work part-time in multiple EIA companies and are affiliated with multiple companies. When the environmental protection department cleans up, it takes a lot of time to sort out and verify these relationships.

　　In addition, during the clean-up, the environmental protection department has no power to interfere with the operation of the enterprise, so they can only check the company's EIA report to see which EIA has signed it, but even if the signature is genuine, the report is not necessarily the EIA report. done.

In this context, it is difficult for environmental protection departments to identify true and false.

　　On June 2, 2022, the China Environmental Protection Industry Association held the June 5th Environment Day legal theme event and member day event.

At the event, the relevant person in charge of the Ecological Environment Law Enforcement Bureau of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment pointed out that since the reform of the EIA system, the number of EIA agencies has increased by 5 times, while the number of EIA auditors has only increased by 5%. , the characteristics of decentralization.

Some enterprises have weak awareness of law-abiding, and problems such as shoddy and falsified EIA reports occur from time to time.

　　Cai Chunxia, ​​deputy general manager of Beijing Guohuan Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., said at the event: "EIA is a traditional advantage area for our company. Since we started the EIA business in 2003, we have personally experienced the ups and downs of the EIA market. Experienced. Today's chaos in the EIA market really makes us old EIA people very sad."

　　Cai Chunxia said that in the era of EIA qualification management, there were less than 1,000 EIA units.

After the EIA qualification was cancelled, up to now, there are 8,281 EIA agencies registered on the platform, and more than 50% of the units have only one EIA.

EIA has changed from a technical job to a job with "low entry barriers, anyone can do it".

　　Xiang Chun told China News Weekly that it is not illegal to register these companies. After some people register, they can put the EIA in it, and the company can practice.

Once there is a problem (such as being investigated by the environmental protection department, being reported, etc.), they will immediately cancel it from the environmental assessment credit platform of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and put the environmental impact assessor in another company, "We learned that some people even Dozens of companies are registered".

　　For some, writing off a company doesn't make much difference, he said.

If the EIA is not notified of the ban, it means that he can continue to practice in another company.

　　For example, in June this year, GreenNet found that the EIA report of a company in the high-tech zone of Weifang City, Shandong Province was obviously falsified, and the text and pictures were all suspected of plagiarizing the EIA report from other places. The platform has been cancelled."

　　The above company mentioned by Xiang Chun is Shandong Fangwei Environmental Engineering Co., Ltd.

On June 17, 2022, the company released the "Publication of the Draft for Comments on the Environmental Impact Assessment Report of Kuiju Industrial Park Planning".

After consulting the EIA report, GreenNet found that information about Linqu County in Weifang City, Pingdu City in Qingdao City, Anqiu City in Weifang City and other places appeared in several chapters of the EIA report (not related to the EIA of this plan).

　　The EIA report "transferred flowers to join trees" by replacing the keywords with "Changyi City" and "Kuiju Industrial Park", and also copied EIA information such as the high-end aluminum processing industrial park in Dongcheng Street, Linqu County, and the Packaging Industrial Park in Baishahe Street, Pingdu City. .

　　"China News Weekly" saw from a letter from the Weifang Ecological Environment Bureau to GreenNet on June 27, 2022 that the bureau has set up an investigation team to investigate the above-mentioned issues.

"You don't need to use your own name"

　　Xiang Chun said that EIA analysts should practice in which company they work. When formulating EIA documents, they must conduct on-the-spot research, attend approval meetings, write reports, and sign reports, so that their qualifications match those of the entity.

The so-called "affiliation" refers to the fact that the environmental impact assessors put their qualifications in the name of other companies and charge relevant fees to satisfy the legitimacy of the company.

　　Although the signature of the EIA also appeared in the subsequent relevant EIA documents, in fact, he did not practice in the company and did not actually participate in the formulation of the documents.

　　The affiliated EIA analysts usually do not work in the company and have their own jobs.

This kind of behavior, just like a person in another place, only needs a shadow to appear in the EIA company, so it is also likened to a "shadow EIA analyst".

　　For a long time before the qualification requirements for EIA agencies were cancelled, the Environmental Science Institute and the Environmental Science Academy under the environmental protection departments of various regions were the most prosperous among EIA agencies.

The EIAs of these units are highly professional and have close ties with the environmental protection department. They can obtain more EIA business and are easier to pass.

In March 2015, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection required such personnel to be "decoupled" by the end of 2016.

　　Xiang Chun said that before that, the Institute of Environmental Sciences, the Academy of Environmental Sciences and the Environmental Protection Bureau seemed to be two units, but they were closely related, and many even worked in the same office building.

Some deans of the Academy of Environmental Sciences may also serve as the deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency in the next step.

In this context, through reforms, the authority to approve EIAs will be delegated to allow more people to participate, which will help make EIAs more transparent and stimulate market vitality.

　　He said, "It is the general trend to release the approval power. But after the release, the follow-up supervision must follow up in time, otherwise chaos will breed."

　　For example, in 2021, they found that an EIA analyst named Jin Moumou of Shandong Jinhua Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., in just 4 months (September 28, 2020 to 2021) On February 2), 1,604 EIA documents (63 reports and 1,541 report forms) were compiled, involving projects located in 25 provinces including Shandong, Guangdong and Jiangxi.

　　Xiang Chun said that a report can be as few as a few hundred pages or as many as a thousand pages. To make a report, an environmental impact assessor must go to the site to investigate, and the calculation and statistics of water quality, soil, atmosphere and other data must also be included. It takes a long time to collect this information, such as public opinion surveys and feedback around the project. "It is against common sense for an EIA to produce more than 1,600 EIA documents in such a short period of time."

　　In this regard, "Voice of China" commented that it generally takes several months to make an EIA report, and it takes 7 to 10 days to make a report form.

When the above-mentioned incidents occur, on the one hand, it may be that the environmental impact assessor lends his professional qualification certificate to an institution without a certified environmental impact assessor to do a project, and then signs the report himself, which may not even have time to review the content; on the other hand, it may also be a batch of The EIA report of other projects was arbitrarily pasted in the production and shoddy manufacturing.

　　On February 25, 2021, Liu Youbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that after comparing it with the data of the national EIA approval system, most of the EIA documents filed by the unit have not yet been submitted for approval. All are reviewed.

If there is an EIA quality problem, it will be dealt with seriously in accordance with laws and regulations.

　　"China News Weekly" checked the EIA credit platform and found that Jin Moumou has been canceled on the platform.

　　An EIA analyst in Guangdong told China News Weekly that when his EIA company was working on projects, he often asked others to rely on him.

Under normal circumstances, after a project is completed, various law enforcement inspections will be encountered in the follow-up. If there is a problem with the project, it may be punished.

　　He said, "Spend some money to use someone else's name to make an EIA report. Even if there is a follow-up problem, the punishment is to punish someone else. When many EIAs around me make reports, they can use their own names."

　　The EIA also revealed that sometimes he was linked because he knew that he could not pass the EIA without cheating.

For example, Guangdong has banned high-volatile paints and coatings.

Therefore, some furniture companies that want to continue to use such paints and coatings will not be able to pass the EIA. "In this case, we don't want to sign our own names when we make EIA reports for such companies."

　　He revealed that some well-known EIA assessors will not be linked casually, and those who are willing to be linked are mostly novices who have recently registered.

The cost of anchoring is also very different, with the price range ranging from a few hundred yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.

"A report form is usually a few hundred yuan, and a report can range from a few thousand yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, or even more expensive."

　　In 2019, an article in the "Economic Herald" stated that Sun Moumou was an "affiliated family". His EIA qualification certificate had been affiliated with a company for two years. The contract was signed for three years. His loan fee is 120,000 yuan, 40,000 yuan per year, in 3 installments.

　　Cai Chunxia said that today's young people are reluctant to take the EIA assessment, and they feel that the risk is very high, which also breeds the prosperity of the temporary EIA market.

　　In an interview with the media, a person in charge of an environmental impact assessment agency in Taiyuan said that from the perspective of the environmental impact assessment company, saving money is the direct driving force to be linked. Environmental impact assessors come to work in the serious business, and they cannot be hired without 100,000 yuan. In order to save money, many environmental impact assessment agencies will use this trick.”

Why is it difficult to punish EIA fraud?

　　Some commentators said that the phenomenon of affiliation has endless troubles for the development of the industry.

On the one hand, the EIA agency has easily obtained personnel certificates through economic means, which weakens the training of personnel capabilities, seriously affects the quality of EIA documents, and is not conducive to the development of the industry; Do not participate in the EIA work, basically do not have the actual work ability, resulting in the situation of having certificates and incompetence, which is not conducive to the progress of the industry.

At the same time, behaviors such as affiliation certificates and forged signatures seriously affect the integrity of the EIA and are not conducive to industry norms.

　　In fact, it has a long history to rectify the environmental impact assessors who have behaviors such as affiliation.

　　On March 3, 2014, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a document pointing out that there are some outstanding problems in the management of full-time EIA technical personnel by EIA agencies.

Relevant personnel who conceal personal information and falsely report their full-time work unit shall be dealt with in accordance with relevant regulations and included in the employee credit information system.

　　On July 30 of the same year, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection issued a relevant "Notice", requiring random inspections of 285 EIA agencies located in Beijing, Hebei, Jilin, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Guizhou and Shaanxi. Whether there are personnel affiliated with external units in the EIA agency”.

　　"China News Weekly" combed the relevant reports and found that the environmental impact assessors who were investigated and punished were mostly punished with criticism, dishonesty scores, and cancellation of registration.

　　On July 31, 2014, the former Ministry of Environmental Protection notified that a total of 62 EIAs from 31 EIA agencies were affiliated.

These EIAs were all deregistered, and were criticized and recorded in the EIA Integrity Information System.

　　The report shows that most of the above 62 people are from environmental protection systems, universities, etc. For example, Hu Mouming, an environmental impact assessor declared by the environmental impact assessment agency Hebei Fuhe Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., works for the Environmental Protection Department of Hebei Province; Hubei Tiantai Environmental Protection Engineering Co., Ltd. declared Yao Moubing and other three people are from Wuhan Environmental Monitoring Center Station; Li Mouyun, who was declared by Dandong Light Chemical Research Institute Co., Ltd., works at Liaoning University.

　　There are comments that the affiliation of the EIA, especially the affiliation of public officials, makes the preparation and approval personnel in the EIA system both athletes and referees, which seriously disrupts the EIA system and loses the credibility and effectiveness of the EIA. , it will make the projects that pass the EIA also have great environmental hidden dangers.

　　At the local level, the investigation and punishment of such environmental assessors have also been reported in the newspapers many times.

For example, in April 2022, the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment notified 14 EIAs who had affiliated behaviors.

　　In fact, EIA fraud and illegal acts have been written into the "Criminal Law Amendment (Eleven)" (officially implemented on March 1, 2021).

This article has added content in the field of the ecological environment. For the first time, environmental impact assessment and environmental monitoring agencies have included "fraudulent" in the criminal law and sentencing.

　　Among them, it is clear that personnel of intermediary organizations undertaking environmental impact assessment, environmental monitoring and other responsibilities intentionally provide false certification documents, and if the circumstances are serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and shall also be fined; Whoever provides false environmental impact assessment and other certification documents, causing particularly heavy losses to public property, the state and people's interests, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years but not more than 10 years and shall also be fined.

　　But why has this law been implemented for more than a year, so far so few relevant violators have been sentenced?

　　Xiang Chun said that this involves the willingness and level of law enforcement by environmental law enforcement officers.

For example, in such incidents, law enforcement officers often have difficulties in obtaining evidence and testing, and there is a big difference between the evidence requirements of the environmental protection department and that of the public security.

　　At the press conference on July 21, Liu Zhiquan emphasized that some local ecological and environmental departments, together with the Public Security, Procuratorate and Law Department and other relevant departments, are taking the initiative to act, and are actively promoting relevant judicial practices for typical cases where false EIA documents are deliberately provided and the circumstances are serious.

The next step will be to severely crack down on criminals suspected of falsifying the EIA.

　　Wang Canfa told China News Weekly that in the process of investigating criminal responsibility, the main difficulty is reflected in the fact-finding.

For example, the fraudulent behavior of some EIAs is not obvious, and it is more difficult to identify.

In addition, it also involves the identification of "serious circumstances", and what kind of circumstances are considered "serious", which also increases the trouble for environmental protection departments in law enforcement.

　　He believes that the EIA work should form a mechanism for prevention in advance, and cannot wait for a problem to be investigated.

For the management of EIA, it is necessary to lower the threshold and reduce the official color, which can stimulate the vitality of the market, but it is also prone to some new problems, and a large number of "shell" companies and affiliated EIAs have also been added.

　　"So, it is time to summarize the experience and lessons that have emerged in practice, improve and perfect the legislation of the EIA system, and formulate corresponding qualification requirements for units that do EIA work." Wang Canfa said.

　　"China News Weekly" Issue 28, 2022

　　Statement: The publication of "China News Weekly" manuscripts is authorized in writing