Environmental Laws, Regulations, and Standards
What this domain tests
This domain rewards the ability to place any facility obligation into the correct legal instrument and to pick the correct standard number when several appear to apply. Questions are usually scenario-based: a plant, a pollutant, a receiving medium, a province with its own standard.
Hierarchy of instruments
- Laws (法律): 环境保护法 (in force 2015-01-01), 水污染防治法, 大气污染防治法, 固体废物污染环境防治法 (2020-09-01), 土壤污染防治法 (2019-01-01), 噪声污染防治法 (2022-06-05, replacing the older 环境噪声污染防治法), 环境影响评价法, 环境保护税法.
- Administrative regulations (行政法规): 建设项目环境保护管理条例, 排污许可管理条例 (2021-03-01).
- Rules and lists: 建设项目环境影响评价分类管理名录, 国家危险废物名录, 自行监测技术指南, 排污许可证申请与核发技术规范.
- Conflict rules: higher level beats lower, special provision beats general, newer beats older.
Standards architecture
- 环境质量标准 (GB 3095 air, GB 3838 surface water, GB 3096 noise, GB 36600 soil) define the target state of the medium. They create no direct discharge duty.
- 污染物排放标准 (GB 8978 comprehensive wastewater, GB 16297 comprehensive air, GB 18918 municipal plants, GB 3544 pulp and paper, GB 13223 power, GB 18484 hazardous waste incineration) define what leaves the stack or outfall.
- Precedence chain: provincial local standard (may only be stricter, never looser) > national industry standard > national comprehensive standard for sources outside any industry standard.
Worked example
A new bleached kraft pulp mill discharges to a Class III reach in a province that has issued a local wastewater standard. Which limits bind?
- GB 3544 制浆造纸工业水污染物排放标准 exists and covers this source type, so it displaces GB 8978 for the covered pollutants.
- The provincial standard applies only where it is stricter; for a pollutant it does not address, the national value still governs.
- Class III of GB 3838 is the designated use to be protected; it is not a discharge limit. The EIA may still impose a stricter total-load or 特别排放限值 as a permit condition, and a permit condition stricter than the standard is lawful.
Traps that cost marks
- Quoting an ambient quality class as if it were the discharge limit.
- Assuming a local standard relaxes a national value; it can only tighten.
- Forgetting that a permit condition, EIA commitment, or 总量 target can be stricter than the standard, and that the stricter one controls.
- Treating 按日连续处罚 as counting from the original violation; it runs from the date of the 责令改正决定.
- Using pre-2022 noise law answers.