The Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently issued the Technical Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment: Urban Rail Transit (Published Version) (the "Technical Guidelines"), a national environmental protection standard that will take effect from March 1, 2019.
The Technical Guidelines set out general principles for the environmental impact assessment for urban rail transit construction projects, and specific work, methods and requirements of the assessment. The Technical Guidelines propose that fundamental tasks of the environmental impact assessment for an urban rail transit project include identifying environmental impact factors, determining the class of the environmental impact assessment, investigating the current environmental situations, monitoring and assessing current environmental situations, projecting and evaluating likely impacts of a construction project on environment, proposing targeted measures for preventing and cleaning up pollution based on projected impacts, in order to create a scientific basis for the environmental management of a construction project. As to the assessment basis, the Technical Guidelines expressly state that, activities shall be conducted in line with relevant national and local laws, regulations, standards, policies and norms concerning environmental protection and in consideration of conclusions and review opinions on the environmental impact assessment for a planning.