China Online
May 2, 2006

China’s General Administration of the Environment has issued a notice declaring that it alone will make public environmentally damaging accidents and related information.

Due to the highly sensitive nature of reporting environmentally damaging accidents, the General Administration of the Environment (GAE) has issued a notice declaring that it alone will make public such accidents and related information. The GAE notice states that all information concerning accidents that pollute the environment, the impacts of such accidents, and the investigations and treatment attendant to such accidents will be, from now on, made public by the GAE and by no other official organ. According to a GAE official, accidents that pollute the environment are highly sensitive and errors in reporting about them could seriously damage China‚Äôs reputation in the world or trigger domestic instability, reports the Jan. 23 Yangcheng Wanbao (Yangcheng Evening News). Therefore, all announcements regarding all such accidents must be “regulated.” The GAE is currently drafting The GAE‚Äôs Ways of Announcing Major Pollution Accidents and Ecologically Damaging Accidents to further regulate the release of information regarding these accidents, the story said.