Recently, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui of the Yangtze River Delta have successively issued a document with the same name - the "Provisions on the Discretionary Basis of Ecological Environmental Administrative Punishment" (hereinafter referred to as the "discretionary benchmark").

In June, the Ecological Environment Departments of three provinces and one city jointly signed a work memorandum on promoting the integration of administrative penalty standards for the ecological environment in the Yangtze River Delta region. Now, the "discretionary benchmark" is the further implementation of the memorandum.

Setting up a standard for law enforcement

In fact, it is not only between provinces and regions but also among cities that the scale of law enforcement is not the same, which easily leads to distrust and dissatisfaction of the masses.

Xu Feng, a member of the Party group and leader of the comprehensive law enforcement team of Jiashan County Ecological Environment Branch Bureau, said that in the past, law enforcement was just to "hoe one’s own potatoes". Even if the law enforcement was launched jointly, the punishment for enterprises polluting the environment was still limited to its territorial standards.

Thus, fairness becomes the key to administrative punishment on environmental pollution. The implementation of a "discretionary benchmark" makes the law enforcement unified in scale and form.

Since the development of the Yangtze River Delta regional integration became a national strategy, the cooperation of three provinces and one city has been promoted rapidly in various fields. The joint release of the "discretionary benchmark" can be regarded as the first breakthrough in terms of ecological environment protection.

Collaborative prevention and control have always been the common pursuit of the four places, and it has been further promoted in July. A comprehensive law enforcement team composed of law enforcement personnel from Jiashan County of Jiaxing City, Qingpu District of Shanghai city, and Wujiang District of Suzhou City has carried out a cross-border on-site inspection for the first time. What is different from the past is that this law enforcement is unified in terms of command and dispatch, team building, inspection procedures, law enforcement strength, and discretion.

"Joint prevention and governance make supervision more strict and services better." The relevant person in charge of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Ecological Environment said that the experience gathered from all over the country is helpful in serving the market and enhancing the sense of gain of enterprises. 

The three provinces and one city can give a consensus on administrative punishment after the enforcement standards are unified. However, to break the administrative barriers and promote the integration of regional environmental governance, it is not enough to merely rely on unified law enforcement.

Zhou Hui, deputy director of the comprehensive Department of Jiaxing Ecological Environment Bureau, said, "unified law enforcement is a key point. With the linkage of multiple standards, the effect of regional environmental governance will be better."

Now, this expectation is gradually realized. "In addition to unified law enforcement, the three provinces and one city will also unify standards and monitoring in the future." The relevant person in charge of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Ecological Environment said that the implementation of the "discretionary benchmark" is to strengthen the law enforcement and supervision of the ecological environment with a "ruler". Henceforth, "a set of standards" will be formed to regulate the ecological environment protection. "One network" and "one platform" will be used to monitor and evaluate the regional ecological environment.

(Compiled and translated by Xu Yuhong)