Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress | One Step Further! The second draft of the Ecological and Environmental Code has been submitted for deliberation once again.

Release Date:

2025-10-24

BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) — By reporter Gao Jing: On the 24th, the draft of the second part of the Ecological and Environmental Code—the Pollution Prevention and Control Chapter—as well as the drafts of the Legal Liability and Supplementary Provisions Chapters were once again submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for deliberation. This marks another significant step forward in the legislative process of China’s second law to bear the title “Code”—the Ecological and Environmental Code.

In April this year, the 15th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress conducted a first review of the draft Ecological and Environmental Code, which is divided into five parts. Among these, the General Provisions, the Ecological Conservation, and the Green and Low-Carbon Development sections were submitted to the Standing Committee for a second review in September this year.

During the public consultation on the draft, numerous stakeholders recommended strengthening financial support for pollution prevention and control in agriculture and rural areas and enhancing measures to address non-point source pollution in agriculture. In response, the second‑reading draft of the Pollution Prevention and Control Law explicitly stipulates that people’s governments at all levels shall allocate funds in their fiscal budgets to support the treatment of rural domestic waste and the prevention and control of pollution from livestock and aquaculture. It also adds provisions requiring the scientific, rational, and safe use of veterinary drugs, feed, feed additives, and other agricultural inputs, as well as the proper disposal of packaging waste from such inputs.

In response to the views and suggestions of all parties on the prevention and control of solid waste pollution, the second draft of the chapter on pollution prevention and control stipulates that people’s governments at or above the county level shall formulate plans for the prevention and control of solid waste pollution, and coordinate the planning, layout, and construction of facilities and sites for the transfer and centralized treatment of solid waste. It also adds a provision requiring the State Council’s department in charge of ecological and environmental protection, together with relevant departments, to establish standards for controlling the content of toxic and hazardous substances in industrial solid waste, and clarifies that no organization or individual may, without authorization, dump, scatter, or pile up construction waste.

In addition, the second draft of the bill on pollution prevention and control further strengthens measures to prevent and control heavy-metal pollution and volatile organic compound pollution. With regard to water pollution prevention and control, it adds provisions for conducting surveys and assessments of groundwater conditions and reinforces efforts to prevent and control water pollution from vessels entering inland waterways.

The second‑reading draft of the chapter on legal liability and supplementary provisions further implements the principle of proportionality between offenses and penalties and refines and adjusts the relevant provisions on fines. First, it adds general provisions applicable to cases involving aggravated penalties, mitigated or reduced penalties, and non‑imposition of penalties. Second, it specifies that the five‑year statute of limitations for administrative penalties applies only to unlawful acts that have resulted in harmful consequences such as environmental pollution or ecological damage. Third, drawing on enforcement experience, it makes corresponding revisions and improvements to the administrative penalty provisions in certain articles that have drawn significant public attention.

The second‑reading draft of the chapter on legal liability and supplementary provisions further strengthens the legal liability regime in the areas of ecological protection and green, low‑carbon development, and introduces specific provisions addressing environmental issues closely related to the public’s daily life and production, such as cooking fume pollution and light pollution.

[Editor-in-charge: Qiu Lifang]

Source: Xinhua Net

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