何宗勳の日誌

【筆者備註】我突發奇想的神來之筆，效果還真炫，這更加深我推動秘密計畫的決心。
Anti-Supermen express their anger at the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday to protest what they said was the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee's reluctance to tackle tough cases.
PHOTO: CNA

FED UP: An Environmental Impact Assessment Committee member and other former members claimed important cases are intentionally ignored
By Angelica Oung
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Jul 20, 2007, Page 2

Alleging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deliberately kept important cases off the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee's (EIAC) agenda, a member of the committee protested outside the agency yesterday rather than attend the committee's last meeting.

Gloria Hsu (徐光蓉), Taiwan Environmental Protection Union chairwoman, said the EPA's "stalling tactics" means that environmental damaging construction projects likely to be rejected by committee could be approved by the next committee, whose members have yet to be convened.

Each EIAC has a two-year tenure, after which a new committee is selected by the head of the EPA.

"What is the point of attending the meeting?" Hsu said.

"Only five insignificant cases are discussed while many important cases that should have been brought before the committee languished," she said.

She was joined by former committee member Thomas Chan (詹順貴) and a crowd of protesters. Chan resigned from the committee last month in protest.

Both Hsu and Chan tied pieces of red fabric bearing the words "Environmental assessment is already dead," around their forehead.

Hsu accused the EPA of avoiding placing cases such as Formosa Plastic Groups' steelworks, the conjunctive utilization plan of Surface water and groundwater in the Chuoshui River alluvial fan and others before the current committee.

"They want to drag these cases out so that they will not go before this committee," Hsu said.

"I heard that our committee has been dubbed `the obstacle committee,'" he said.

"Are they delaying important cases from coming before the committee until it reconvenes with more business-friendly members?" Hsu said, "Why else are the keeping important cases from being heard?"

Also at the protest was the secretary-general of the TEPU, Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳).

"The EPA is derelict in its duty to protect the environment in Taiwan," Ho said, describing the agency as a "soft-legged shrimp" in the case of the sixth naphtha plant.

The agency previously meted out fines in March that was subsequently revoked by the Executive Yuan, Ho said.

At yesterday's press conference, EPA Deputy Director Chang Tzi-chin (張子敬) said the tenure of the current committee was about to end, meaning that there would not be enough time for the case of the sixth naphtha plant to come before it. However, Chang said the new limits will not necessarily be the 351,000 ton limit approved by the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

"It is up to the new committee, yet to be convened, to decide what the upper limit of water use could be for the sixth naphtha plant," Chang said.

Although fellow committee member Robin Winkler did not join Hsu's protest and attended the yesterday's meeting, he did offer a show of solidarity.

Coming down from the 13th floor where the meeting took place, Winkler ripped up a copy of the Basic Environmental Act (環境基本法) and shouted "Environmental assessment is dead."
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．Activists protest EPA delay in reviewing cases Fonts Size:



Environmental activists stage a protest in Taipei yesterday in front of the Environmental Protection Administration to protest against the high water consumption at the Sixth Naphtha Cracker in Yunlin County.

Demonstrators accuse agency of catering to interests of large construction firms
By Hermia Lin
Taiwan News, Staff Reporter
Page 3
2007-07-20 12:39 AM

While the Environmental Protection Administration yesterday held an Environmental Impact Review Committee meeting to go through several development cases, two committee members and a group of environmentalists held a sit-in protest outside the administration's office to blast the EPA for allegedly delaying the review of several major and controversial cases.
"This is the last committee meeting before the current committee members' tenure expires at the end of this month. However, the five cases scheduled to be reviewed in today's agenda are all minor or unimportant cases," said Hsu Kwang-jung, a committee member who is also the chairwoman of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union. She told reporters that a total of 26 cases are waiting to be reviewed, but that the EPA excluded some major controversial ones in order to help the construction companies and corporations involved in the development cases.

"How can we have faith in the EPA if it continues to help conglomerates?" said Hsu, adding that the public will be forced to stage rallies and use their own power to protect the environment.

"The EPA is using 'the delay strategy' in dealing with the cases, and I am worried that the next group of review members will be rubber stamps and have no influential power in reviewing the development cases," Hsu said. According to Hsu, cases the EPA is deliberately delaying include the review of a Jiji Township water supply case and the Hualien-Taitung railway case, etc.

Hsu told reporters earlier this month that she would step down from the EPA committee when her current term expires this month.

Hsu and former committee member Thomas Chan wore bandanas which read, "the Environmental Impact Review Committee is dead," during the sit-in. Robin Winkler, an environmental activist and a member of the review committee, tore up a brochure written by the EPA and said that "the environmental protection in Taiwan is going back to the martial law era."

An environmental group from Yunlin County also joined the sit-in, chanting protesting slogans and holding banners to express their dissatisfaction with the EPA. A group of oyster farmers dressed in superhero outfits staged a skit at the scene in which they sent "oyster viagra" to EPA Minister Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), saying they hoped Chen would act more "firmly" when deciding controversial issues.

"What the EPA is doing now is destroying the environmental impact review system that has been in place for the past 10 years. The most regretful thing is that the EPA is an accomplice in ruining the system," said Chan, who quit the committee in June.

In reply, EPA Deputy Minister Chang Tzi-ching rebutted the protesters' remarks, telling reporters that the EPA is exercising its duty in accordance with the law. "There are reasons that some cases are not scheduled in today's agenda," Chang said, adding that he thinks it is not fair for the next committee members to be dubbed "rubber stamps."

Meanwhile, the EPA yesterday noted that the Formosa Plastics Group's excessive use of water at its No. 6 Naphtha Cracker Complex in Yunlin would not be reviewed yesterday, but the case will be reviewed in by the next group of committee members.

According to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, the review committee is composed of seven EPA officials and 14 recommended figures from different fields. The new members will have to be responsible for reviewing the controversial Suao-Hualien Expressway construction project and a steelworks development plan funded by the Formosa Plastics Group.