Rights and responsibilities

Another highlight in the second draft is a section dedicated to the responsibilities of the government, polluting enterprises and the public, and also the environmental rights of the public.

According to the draft, the public has the right to acquire information about air quality, and to take part in the monitoring and protection of the ambient air.

Residents can ask for information and data on pollution emergencies, the control of exhaust emissions, punishments handed down to local enterprises and so on, from all levels of the capital's government bodies.

Residents may report polluting behavior to relevant government bodies. Those affected by pollutants may ask the polluters to abide by their responsibilities, eliminate the hazards and compensate for any damage caused. They may even institute legal proceedings through the courts if needed.

"This is a breakthrough because it's the first time the public's detailed environmental rights have been officially mentioned," said Ma Yong, director of the supervision and litigation department at the environmental legal service center of the All-China Environmental Federation, an environmental NGO supervised by the Environmental Protection Ministry.

However, experts on environmental laws and regulations who participated in the creating the draft pointed out that there remains some uncertainty as to how these rights will be exercised in reality.

During the discussion of the draft, some experts suggested that penalties should be calculated on the basis of the number of days on which an infringement occurred, rather than the number of times that a rule was broken. However, this suggestion was not adopted in the new draft.

"Calculating penalties by day is actually more of a principled item than removing the upper limit for fines because the previous 1-million-yuan limit may already be hard enough to reach when the regulation is being implemented," Ma said.

However, he said that the Environmental Protection Law, which is also currently being amended, has included penalties calculated by day in its draft, and such rules may also be added to the air pollution regulation in the future.