More than 15,000 people are accountable in 31 provinces —— Perspective on the full coverage of the first environmental protection inspector in China.

　　Xinhua News Agency "China Net" reporter Wu Mengda Gong Zhihong

　　The Ministry of Environmental Protection recently announced that the fourth batch of central environmental protection inspectors have completed the work of stationing inspectors in eight provinces including Jilin, Zhejiang and Shandong. During this period, 8 provinces interviewed 4210 people due to environmental problems and held 5763 people accountable.

　　From the end of 2015, when the central environmental protection inspector visited Hebei as a pilot, the storm of environmental accountability set off in various places and covered 31 provinces across the country, and more than 15,000 people have been held accountable.

　　Inspectors cover 31 provinces and have more than 15,000 people accountable.

　　Environmental protection inspector is an important institutional arrangement for environmental protection in recent years. In July 2015, the 14th meeting of the Central Deep Reform Group reviewed and approved the Environmental Protection Supervision Scheme (Trial), and clearly established the environmental protection supervision mechanism.

　　The inspector’s "first sword" refers to Hebei, where environmental problems were prominent at that time. At the end of 2015, the Central Environmental Protection Inspector Group was stationed in Hebei to carry out the pilot inspection. Subsequently, the environmental storm was continuously pushed to the whole country.

　　In July 2016, the first batch of eight central environmental protection inspectors stationed in Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Henan, Guangxi, Yunnan and Ningxia; In November 2016, the second batch of 7 inspectors inspected Beijing, Shanghai, Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing, Shaanxi and Gansu; In April 2017, the third batch of 7 inspectors inspected Tianjin, Shanxi, Liaoning, Anhui, Fujian, Hunan and Guizhou; In August 2017, the fourth batch of inspectors successively stationed in Jilin, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hainan, Sichuan, Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang (including the Corps).

　　So far, in more than two years, the environmental storm has covered 31 provinces without dead ends. Many people regard inspectors as "scraping bones to cure poison". "It turns out that pollution control is like slapping. This time, I feel that the knife is really on my neck." A company said that if environmental protection is not up to standard, it will "die miserably".

　　Many experts believe that environmental protection inspectors not only inspect enterprises, but more importantly supervise the "government", and the environmental storm drives the accountability storm. According to the inspectors’ feedback released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, there are more than 15,000 environmental protection inspectors in China.

　　The people have actually felt the real changes in environmental protection, and more and more people have taken the initiative to provide clues to the inspector group. The data shows that the first batch of central environmental protection inspectors sent letters and calls to the local people to report 13 thousand pieces; The second batch exceeded 15,000 pieces; The third batch of 31,000 pieces; The fourth batch of nearly 40,000 pieces … …

　　Inspectors found that four types of problems were prominent in various places.

　　— — Environmental protection makes way for the economy, and cadres’ thoughts are "smog".

　　The heavy chemical industry accounts for a large proportion in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province, but in recent years, a large number of high-pollution projects are still being built and expanded, which not only aggravates regional air pollution, but also brings a heavy burden to the future industrial structure adjustment. Behind this is that some places are still "talking about heroes with GDP" when formulating assessment objectives and tasks. The inspector group found in Hebei, Anhui and other places that the weight of eco-environmental indicators had declined in the performance appraisal of local governments’ target management. Jingmen, Qianjiang and other places in Hubei even listed the completion of the investment promotion task as the "one-vote veto" item of the annual evaluation by the environmental protection department.

　　The "smog" of party and government leadership thoughts in some places is even more serious than reality. The inspector group pointed out that some grassroots leading cadres in Beijing are used to blaming environmental problems on objective reasons in their ideological understanding; In Inner Mongolia, the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of half of the League cities rarely studies environmental protection, and some even have not studied environmental protection issues for one year.

　　— — The pollution problem is "not exposed and not solved" and the governance is "opportunistic".

　　The site selection of garbage disposal facilities in Chaoyang District, Shantou City, Guangdong Province has been changed three times in three years, and it has not yet started when the inspection team is stationed. Liujia Wharf Village in Beichen District, Tianjin has gathered nearly 1,000 waste recycling workshops, and accumulated a large amount of garbage, muck and sewage, which has not been solved for a long time. It was not until April 2017 that the Ministry of Environmental Protection inspected and was exposed by the media that it was rectified.

　　Others are eager for quick success and instant benefit, resulting in money spent and work done, but the effect is minimal. Tianjin Binhai New Area and wuqing district have taken utilitarian measures such as controlling traffic flow and increasing the number of washing and cleaning in the surrounding areas of air quality automatic monitoring stations.

　　— — Report data "fiddling" and monitor data fraud.

　　From 2013 to 2015, the Development and Reform Commission of Hebei Province basically did not conduct on-site verification on the storage projects of reduced steel production capacity reported by cities, and some storage equipment was still in production. Relevant personnel in Chang ‘an District and yanliang district City of Xi ‘an are not aware of the bottom line of environmental protection. They artificially interfere with the normal operation of the national air quality monitoring substation and falsify the air quality monitoring data.

　　— — Environmental problems in nature reserves and key river basins are outstanding.

　　Qilian Mountain is an important barrier for ecological security in northwest China. After the State Council approved the adjustment of the demarcation of protected areas in 2014, Gansu Provincial Department of Land and Resources still approved and extended 9 mining rights and 5 exploration rights in protected areas in violation of laws and regulations. Dulbert County, anniversary City, Heilongjiang Province illegally implemented a development project in Zhalong National Nature Reserve, resulting in the destruction of more than 10,000 mu of wetlands in the reserve. Due to the local illegal occupation of the lake for tourism development, the lakeside wetland in Chaohu, Anhui Province was destroyed, and the water quality of the Shiwuli River entering the lake was inferior to five categories for a long time.

　　Rebuilding the bottom line of environmental protection red line to prevent "one size fits all" and "one gust of wind"

　　Over the past two years, with the sword of environmental protection, a series of gratifying changes are taking place.

　　The local government’s awareness of environmental protection red line has been greatly enhanced, and the transformation of local industries has also been upgraded and accelerated. As the "first stop" of the central environmental protection inspector, Hebei has investigated and rectified more than 80,000 "scattered pollution" enterprises this year. Among them, Wen ‘an County, one of the domestic plywood production bases, stopped production and rectified more than 7,000 wood-based panel enterprises. After the integration, all 200 enterprises reached the standard, the number of enterprises was reduced to one tenth, but the output value and tax payment doubled.

　　With the continuous implementation of the new development concept, all localities have improved the system of assessment and accountability of cadres, and put on a spell for party and government cadres. Hegang, Heilongjiang Province, incorporated environmental protection work into the annual target assessment of county work, and the evaluation weight increased from 6 points to 10 points. In the past, the phenomenon of environmental protection departments fighting alone has also been improved, and a series of long-term mechanisms have been established and improved. Drawing lessons from the central environmental protection supervision mode, provincial environmental protection supervision systems have been established in many places, and the reform of vertical management system for monitoring, supervision and law enforcement of environmental protection institutions below the provincial level has been carried out in pilot provinces and cities such as Hebei and Chongqing.

　　At the same time, some experts suggest that it is necessary to prevent individual places from being "across the board" and "a gust of wind" in local rectification under the pressure of inspector accountability.

　　Under the pressure of environmental protection, some places have simply and rudely taken "one size fits all" temporary closure measures for enterprises in people’s livelihood-related industries such as car wash shops, restaurants and laundries during the rectification of problems. For such problems, Chengdu issued an urgent notice in early August this year, not allowing temporary closure to deal with environmental protection inspectors, not allowing formalism, and not allowing the normal production of enterprises and the normal life of the people to be affected in the name of environmental protection inspectors.

　　Wang Yukai, a professor at the National School of Administration, and other experts suggested that environmental protection inspectors can learn from the experience of inspections, combine full coverage with "looking back" to prevent local governments from making a "gust of wind" to cope with inspections, and also increase the intensity of special inspections on key issues, so as to keep the sword of environmental protection hanging at all times, consolidate the achievements of environmental protection governance, and let the people see more actual environmental changes after accountability.