Strengthening environmental licensing work

The Law on Environmental Protection 2020, which officially took effect on January 1, 2022, has undergone strong reforms, cutting 40% of administrative procedures. Currently, the new environmental license has integrated 7 types of component environmental licenses and is issued to facilities and projects that generate waste that must be treated before official operation.

Officers of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment conduct appraisal to grant environmental license for the project "Sangshin Central Vietnam" at Dong Ai Tu Industrial Park, Trieu Phong district - Photo: TN

An environmental license is a document issued by a competent state management agency to organizations and individuals engaged in production, business, and service activities that are permitted to discharge waste into the environment, manage waste, and import scrap from foreign countries as raw materials for production, along with requirements and conditions on environmental protection (EP) as prescribed by law.

The Law on Environmental Protection 2020 and its implementing documents have provided many regulations on subjects, time, deadline for submitting applications for environmental licenses, and costs for appraisal and granting environmental licenses for various types of projects and facilities. This is a necessary and sufficient condition to ensure that facilities must comply with legal regulations before coming into operation to prevent, minimize, and eliminate environmental pollution.

To implement new regulations on environmental licensing, the People's Committee of Quang Tri province issued Decision No. 732/QD-UBND dated March 8, 2022 on promulgating the list of newly issued administrative procedures; replaced administrative procedures; abolished administrative procedures in the environmental field under the state management scope of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Quang Tri province.

Accordingly, competent authorities must grant environmental licenses within 30 days from the date of receiving complete and valid dossiers; within 15 days for investment projects and facilities not subject to trial operation of waste treatment facilities.

Investment projects and facilities connecting wastewater to the centralized wastewater collection and treatment system of concentrated production, business and service areas and industrial clusters must meet the following requirements: not be in the type of production, business and service that poses a risk of causing environmental pollution; not in the case of automatic, continuous and periodic monitoring of emissions according to the provisions of Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP.

For investment projects, facilities, concentrated production, business and service zones, industrial clusters that increase in scale, capacity, or change production technology (except for investment projects that change the subject of environmental impact assessment); investment projects, facilities, concentrated production, business and service zones, industrial clusters that change the number of sources of wastewater, dust, and emissions, causing pollution parameters to exceed environmental technical standards on waste, and creating new pollution parameters that exceed environmental technical standards on waste.

Increasing the flow of wastewater, dust, and exhaust gas increases the content of pollution parameters exceeding the environmental technical standards on waste; increasing the level of noise and vibration pollution; changing the wastewater receiving source and the method of discharge into water sources with stricter protection requirements. The re-issuance of environmental licenses must be carried out within 30 working days from the date of receipt of complete and valid documents.

In addition, the Provincial People's Council issued Resolution No. 13/2022/NQ-HDND dated April 15, 2022, which stipulates the collection rates, collection, payment, management and use of fees for appraisal of environmental licenses granted by the Provincial People's Committee and District People's Committee.

Specifically, the fee for appraisal of granting and re-granting provincial-level environmental licenses is 2.2-10.4 million VND/license; license adjustment is 50% of the environmental license fee. The fee for appraisal of granting and re-granting district-level environmental licenses is 2.2-5.6 million VND/license; license adjustment is 50% of the environmental license fee...

Recently, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has issued an official dispatch urging and guiding businesses and localities to prepare dossiers for environmental licensing in accordance with regulations. Submit to the Provincial People's Committee to issue internal processing procedures to resolve administrative procedures related to environmental licensing; receive and circulate dossiers on the province's electronic one-stop information portal.

Send documents to departments, branches, localities, and units to send experts with experience in the environmental field and related professional fields to improve the effectiveness of environmental licensing management.

Since the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 took effect, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment has appraised 58 dossiers of proposals for environmental licensing under the authority of the Provincial People's Committee, of which the Provincial People's Committee has granted licenses to 48 production facilities and investment projects. All dossiers for environmental licensing have been received, appraised and granted licenses in accordance with the correct procedures, ensuring the time.

The rapid implementation of procedures and regulations on environmental licensing in Quang Tri province aims to ensure that facilities must comply with the provisions of the law on environmental protection before they come into operation. At the same time, improve the quality of operations of competent state agencies in environmental licensing management; strengthen inspection, examination, detection, prevention and strict and timely handling of violations of the law in the field of environmental licensing management and use.

Tan Nguyen

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