An Analysis Of The Enlightenment Of Us Clean Air Legislation To China’s Air Pollution Prevention And Control

The severe problem of air pollution is becoming deteriorated, which requires management innovation from economy, technology, administration, legislation and all aspects. At the present, for the serious challenge of the air pollution in our country, the current “air pollution prevention and control law” has been unable to deal the problems. The lack of operability in legal system increases the difficulty of enforcing the law, which makes law cannot be truly and effectively implemented and violates the original intention of the legislation. Therefore, amendments of the “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law” have been put on the schedule. How to reflect and solve these problems in the law has become a crucial research question in the environmental law area.On April 24, 2014, the Eighth meeting of the twelfth session of National People’s Congress passed the newly revised “Environmental Protection Law”. In the same year, on December 22 nd, the “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law(Revised Draft)” had been submitted to the National People’s Congress to consider by the State Council. The “Revised Draft” focuses starting from the sources, emphasizing public participation, refining the total discharge of the pollutants concentration and control, adding provisions of cooperation of the government and regional joint prevention and control of multi-pollutant in key fields and areas, increasing the punishment for acts of undocumented, exceed the standard discharge and detection of data fraud. The revised draft summarized China’s air pollution problems in recent years, and many key issues are reflected in the draft, such as strengthening of the government’s responsibility for environmental protection, emissions control, prevention and control of air pollution in key areas, warning of heavy pollution weather and perfect measures of punishment illegal acts. Although, in some degree, provisions of the new law fill a gap in legislation of air pollution prevention and control, there still lefts places to be improved and strengthen, such as clear the legal status of emissions trading system, refine the mobile source control system, and etc.This dissertation firstly sorts out China’s current “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law”. Within the framework of the new “Environmental Protection Law”, “Revised Draft” and the “Activity Plan of Air Pollution Prevention and Control”, it summarizes expose gaps and weaknesses of the existing legal system in the practice. Secondly, starting from the practice of the US clean air legislation, concluding government responsibilities, regional cooperation, total control, emissions trading systems, mobile source control and other related systems, summarize the legislative experience in order to get enlightenments. Lastly, provide suggestions on perfecting the construction of China’s atmospheric legislation system. It should be noted that in the process of improving the legal system of prevention and control of air pollution in China, do not blindly copy. We should not only summarize our legislative practice and experience, but also based on our basic national conditions, select and learn excellent foreigner legislation systems.