Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) yesterday defended amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法), which passed their third reading at the Legislative Yuan on Monday, calling them a “home run.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) has criticized the bill, which increases the scope of anti-pollution measures and raises fines, calling it a political move timed ahead of the upcoming nine-in-one elections.
Asked about Chiang’s criticism during a Hit FM radio interview, Ker said discussion on the bill began when former premier Lin Chuan (林全) was in office.
Photo courtesy of Hit FM
The Executive Yuan discussed the bill with several government departments and received feedback from the affected industries and local governments, Ker said, adding that the process took more than a year.
The bill could only be sent to the legislature for review after thorough communication between party caucuses, he said.
Chiang is “too inexperienced” and does “not understand how the government operates,” Ker said.
The bill was discussed four times at legislative committee meetings, eight times in meetings with the premier and 40 times during visits to the legislature by Environmental Protection Administration Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), Ker said, adding that was a record for total discussion of a bill.
Among items included in the amendments are a timeline for transitioning to a fully electric public transit system and stipulations requiring the installation of exhaust filtration systems on all large freight vehicles and buses, he said.
The KMT’s concerns about the bill’s allowances for substitutions between stationary and mobile sources of pollution are misguided, because mechanisms remain in place to regulate the overall volume of pollution, Ker said.
Substitutions were allowed under the original law, but the rules were never implemented, he said.
The amendments also broaden the scope of how the negative effects of air pollution are measured, he added.
Ker said he spoke with Lee, Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and Premier William Lai (賴清德) in the final stages of the bill’s review, adding that Lin convinced the DPP to discuss the bill further before its passage.
“Such an important national policy cannot be decided by one side alone,” Ker said, urging the KMT to look at things more carefully before discrediting others.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
RSS