The Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently issued the Plan on Strengthened Supervision and Inspection in Key Areas in 2018 and 2019 to Defend the Blue Sky (the "Plan").
The Plan states that continued efforts will be made to strengthen joint prevention and control across different regions, deepen integrated rectification, tighten crackdown on violations relating to ambient air, constantly consolidate achievements in preventing and controlling air pollution and push for improvements to the ambient air quality. Further, the Plan outlines four major tasks regarding the industry structure, energy structure, transport structure and land use structure, and calls for efforts to look into the installation, operation, qualifying discharge, etc. with respect to environmental protection facilities applied by gas-related industrial enterprises, adding that by the end of this year, at major costal ports in key areas, including coal entrepots such as Tianjin Port, Tangshan Port and Huanghua Port, coal must be transported by rail or by water; in case of newly constructed, reconstructed and expanded construction projects that involve the delivery of enormous amount of materials, such materials shall not be transported by road in principle. Furthermore, the Plan calls on all regions to work out lists for major tasks concerning "enterprises that are in unauthorized locations, lack the proper certificates and fail to meet emission standards", coal-fired boilers, industrial furnaces, small-sized thermal power plants, and bulk coal replacement, and to create ledger accounts to better manage these tasks.