The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and 17 other authorities have jointly issued the “Opinions on Promoting Functional Sectors Departments for Better Ecological and Environmental Protection” (hereinafter referred to as “Opinions”).

The Opinions propose that departments in charge of development, production and industry must work in accordance with the requirement of “one post, double responsibilities*”, and promote functional departments to perform their duties in ecological environmental protection.

There are 20 articles in 7 areas in the Opinions:
(1) “Adhere to and strengthen the overall leadership of the Party”, making it clear that all regions and departments must resolutely shoulder the political responsibility for ecological civilization construction and ecological environmental protection.
(2) “Clarify the lead department for specific matters of ecological environmental protection”, requiring functional departments to clarify specific matters of ecological environmental protection and localities to establish a mechanism for determining the lead department.
(3) “Strengthen the duties and responsibilities of ecological and environmental protections”, setting out work requirements for the leading departments and relevant functional departments.
(4) “Implementing a special reporting system for ecological environmental protection”, requiring the relevant functional departments to report annually to the party committee and government at the same level on the implementation of ecological environmental protection and to disclose the information to the public in accordance with the law.
(5) “Strengthen the supervision of the implementation of ecological environmental protection work”, which sets out clear and detailed requirements for local party committees and governments at all levels to take leadership responsibility for ecological civilization construction and ecological environmental protection.
(6) “Strengthening the accountability of inspectors and incentives”, which sets out requirements in terms of both incentives and constraints to encourage cadres to take up their responsibilities.
(7) “Strengthen supervision guarantee system for ecological and environmental protection supervision”, clearly strengthen the convergence and cooperation between administrative law enforcement and criminal justice, etc., and require the Ministry of Ecology and Environment to strengthen work coordination and coordination of convergence.

*The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Commerce, the Audit Office, the General Administration of Market Regulation, the Energy Bureau, the Forestry and Grassland Bureau, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate have jointly issued the “Opinions on Promoting Functional Departments for Better Ecological and Environmental Protection” .