What Does an Environmental Services Director Do?

Environmental protection management refers to the management measures taken by humans to solve actual or potential environmental problems, coordinate the relationship between humans and the environment, protect human living environment, and ensure sustainable economic and social development. The main existing problems are inadequate environmental protection mechanisms, substandard environmental technologies and products. ^[1]

Obstacles to environmental management in rural environmental management systems

1. Irregular department coordination

Due to historical and practical reasons, the construction of China's ecological protection system lags behind pollution control. The government's rural environmental pollution prevention and control functions are scattered in multiple departments, and a departmental management model based on division of labor according to ecological or resource elements is adopted. There are many disadvantages to this model. First, due to the lack of unified decision-making, unified supervision systems and mechanisms at the national level, there are institutional obstacles such as misalignment of government functions, conflicts, and overlaps, resulting in conflicts between national public interests and sectoral industry interests. The requirements of "unified regulations, unified planning, and unified supervision" are difficult to implement. Second, each department has proceeded from the interests of the department, actively promoted the formulation of laws related to the resources managed by the department, and strengthened its own authorization and power through the law, causing conflicts between laws and regulations, and increasing the number of grass-roots departments. Difficulty in implementing relevant laws and regulations. Third, planning and policy formulation are separate, and they are not sufficiently interconnected, which makes ecological construction and ecological protection standards different, and the measures are incomplete and incompatible, which is extremely detrimental to the national macro-control of ecological protection. Fourth, because some divisions of labor are not clear and reasonable, resulting in multiple management, they are offside and overlap when performing division of labor functions. For example, in the case of rural poultry manure pollution, the livestock management department is the business management department of the farm, but its duties do not include the content of manure management and resource utilization. The environmental protection department is concerned about the treatment of poultry manure, but its management system is not Adapt to rural non-industrial pollution, especially the management of poultry and manure pollution in many small and medium-sized farms and free-range farmers. Therefore, there is no special department responsible for the loss of poultry and livestock manure in rural areas, resulting in the continuous accumulation of rural environmental pollution and aggravating the damage to the ecological environment to a certain extent. Fifth, the resource management department does not distinguish between government and enterprise. The resource department has the functions of resource protection, supervision and ecological construction, as well as the task of operating and developing resources.

2. Contradictions in the management system

Due to the cross-administrative nature of ecological and environmental issues and the importance of national interests, the government decided to implement the dual leadership of the provincial environmental protection administrative agency and the provincial people's government. This decision shows that the State Council recognizes the special nature of environmental protection as the basic responsibility of the government, and has played a certain role in restraining local governments from violating national environmental protection laws and policies for short-term and self-interest. However, the current "dual leadership" is mainly the appointment of the chief person in charge of the provincial environmental protection administrative agency, and there is still no effective supervision mechanism for specific work. As the current environmental protection system has not been completely vertical, local environmental protection work has received local interests Intervention, it is difficult to really play its due role. Due to funding, personnel are subject to local governments, and grass-roots environmental protection departments often look at the leadership of local governments when enforcing environmental protection. Only by actively cooperating with the needs of local economic development can they "survive". Under such circumstances, local environmental protection agencies often become "collusion" with local governments, and even act as "pioneers of open roads" for local protectionism. Environmental protection has laws that are not compliant, enforcement is not strict, laws are not investigated, and supervision is weak. Yes. The territorial management system of environmental protection departments lags behind the environmental protection situation.

3. Unreasonable division of powers and financial rights

After the reform of the tax sharing system in 1994, the provincial and municipal governments, drawing on the ideas of the central government, adopted a tax sharing approach with the county and township governments to concentrate their financial resources, but transferred responsibility to the county and townships. As a result, fiscal revenue has moved up, decentralized expenditure responsibilities, asymmetric powers and financial power, and county and township finances lack the necessary autonomy. As a result, on the one hand, the county and township governments have to take the expansion of tax sources as their primary goal of administration, unilaterally strengthen economic construction functions, compete for investment and run projects, actively intervene in microeconomic activities, and even spare no effort to sacrifice the ecological environment; On the one hand, although there is no clear division of power and responsibility among different levels of government in China, from the perspective of fiscal expenditure responsibilities, county and township governments generally bear a variety of compulsory education, environmental protection, social security, infrastructure, and social security. Responsibility for local public goods services. Grassroots governments have poor tax sources, low fiscal revenues, disconnected powers and financial powers, and limited disposable financial resources. Due to the phenomenon of "central government invitation and local payment", many projects also require the county and township governments to provide matching funds, which has aggravated the financial difficulties at the grassroots level. In addition, the effects of environmental pollution control are not easy to assess, and they are highly spill-over, costly, and lack the corresponding compensation and assessment mechanisms. It is difficult for the grassroots government to recognize and reward the efforts, and the investment and benefits are extremely asymmetric. Therefore, the grassroots governments are not enthusiastic in providing public products and services such as the prevention and control of environmental pollution.

4. County and township governments' performance evaluation lacks constraints on environmental governance goals

Although China has promoted the environmental responsibility system of relevant levels of government and business leaders through the implementation of environmental protection model cities and environmental target responsibility systems, environmental performance cannot be incorporated into a comprehensive performance indicator in an institutionalized and reliable manner. In the system, from the national economic accounting system at the national level to the provincial and municipal and local performance indicators and the accounting and accounting systems of enterprises, the environment has not been built into these indicators and indicator values in a standardized way in a standardized way. Accounting. The single economic indicator leading to gross national product and gross output value is still the main indicator of performance evaluation and achievement. When economic growth and environmental protection conflict, environmental considerations inevitably give way to economic priority. According to the "Environmental Protection Law", the responsibility for environmental protection is mainly local. However, at present, the county and township government's performance evaluation is still dominated by economic indicators, lacking environmental governance target constraints, and lacking environmental protection accountability mechanisms. Local governments at all levels in China directly participate in economic activities, and economic development is their main goal. This pressure-oriented system, led by economic goals, is characterized by the quantitative evaluation of the performance of lower-level local government officials by higher-level local governments. Lower-level local government officials must complete various economic indicators issued by higher-level authorities within a specified time. As an important criterion for assessing political performance. This makes local governments at all levels lack the enthusiasm for environmental protection, often tends to tolerate for economic development, protects or even condones the behavior of pollution and environmental damage during economic development, and does not cooperate and support the work of environmental protection departments.

Innovative countermeasures of rural environmental protection management system

1. Highlight the unified supervision and management functions of environmental protection administrative agencies

At present, China's environmental protection system adopts a system of "unified supervision and management by environmental protection departments and division of responsibilities for each department." To further strengthen and improve this system, each department should streamline its environmental protection responsibilities in accordance with this principle. First, we must highlight unified supervision and management. Unified supervision and management means unified decision-making and unified supervision. The environmental protection administrative agency shall consider environmental protection decisions on behalf of the country in accordance with the law, which can avoid interference of departmental interests on national environmental protection work, curb conflicts of interest between departments, and prevent environmental protection laws from being issued in multiple ways. Going abroad to the greatest extent guarantees that the interests of the country and the people are not infringed. Unified supervision is a reasonable continuation of unified decision-making. The supervision and implementation of environmental policies and environmental management by the environmental protection administrative agency on behalf of the country can ensure that the supervision is authoritative, serious, fair, and transparent under the unified standards, and ensure the implementation of rural environmental pollution prevention and control policies and the effects of environmental management. For example, environmental pollution prevention and nature protection functions in western countries are generally under the unified responsibility of environmental protection authorities, and pollution prevention and nature protection functions in Germany, France, and Italy are concentrated in the Ministry of the Environment. The agriculture department is responsible for forestry industry policy and forest planting, felling, and forest protection is entirely the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment. Second, it is necessary to highlight the division of labor and responsibility for implementation. The prevention and control of rural environmental pollution involves all aspects of society and the economy. The environmental protection administrative department is unnecessary and impossible to implement all environmental protection policies and manage all environmental protection affairs, and a large number of environmental protection laws are implemented. The work of laws, regulations and policies and the implementation of environmental protection management shall be handed over to the relevant departments and local governments under the supervision of the environmental protection administrative authorities in accordance with the requirements of relevant laws and regulations. The implementation of the division of labor in the prevention and control of rural environmental pollution is also the sharing of social responsibilities. Governments at all levels have the responsibility to fulfill the responsibility of protecting the environment in accordance with national laws and policies. At the same time, rural environmental protection is becoming more and more closely related to the management of economic departments and local governments, and has even become part of their work. In this sense, environmental protection should also implement an implementation mechanism of division of responsibilities.

2. Establish a coordination mechanism across environmental protection, agriculture and other related departments

In view of the political sensitivity and social universality of rural environmental protection, which are related to the interests of the country and the people, it is necessary to establish an inter-agency coordination mechanism chaired by the State Council. For example, at the same time as the division of functions, western countries have established a more comprehensive coordination mechanism for environmental protection management. Because environmental protection and sustainable development involve many aspects, solving environmental problems involves almost all departments of the government, so it is very important to coordinate the positions of various departments and resolve conflicts between departments, such as the National Environmental Quality Committee of the United States. The existence of such coordinating agencies and procedures has eased the conflicts between the environmental protection agencies and other departments in their functions and work, and has improved work efficiency. The organizational form of the inter-departmental coordination mechanism can be a very established State Council Environmental Protection Committee to integrate To coordinate and give play to the functions and roles of the existing rural environmental management agencies, and to do a good job of preventing and controlling rural environmental pollution, the committee is mainly responsible for coordinating and solving the following five aspects: First, inter-sectoral, inter-industry, inter-regional, corporate and social issues. Various interests related to rural environmental protection; the second is that the immediate and short-term goals of economic development authorities are in conflict with the long-term goals of national environmental protection; the third is that rural environmental protection policies that go beyond the scope of environmental protection administrative agencies Final formulation and implementation; Fourth, formulate environmental policies that coordinate environmental protection and economic development, and promote the synergy of various sectors in sustainable development; fifth, ensure that the environmental impact of each plan is fully considered when formulating industry and sector plans. Attention should be paid to the establishment of sectoral coordination mechanisms in the prevention and control of rural environmental pollution, especially the integration and coordination of the roles of the agricultural and environmental protection departments. For example, for the environmental pollution control of township and village enterprises, agriculture, environmental protection, industry and commerce departments should share information, grasp the real-time environmental impact factors such as the type, number, distribution, and production of township and village enterprises, and monitor their environmental pollution and pollution control status in a timely manner. .

3.Practice comprehensive environmental and development decisions through participation in decision-making and establishment of a monitoring mechanism

According to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 adopted by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, comprehensive environmental and development decision-making refers to "improving and perfecting the policy making process, comprehensively and comprehensively integrating economic, social and environmental factors. "Think", so that all major economic development and environmental protection decisions not only meet the requirements of economic benefits, but also ensure that the ecological environment can support sustainable development. Considering the significance of rural environmental protection for the implementation of sustainable development strategies, national and local legislative bodies should clarify or authorize environmental protection administrative agencies at all levels to participate in comprehensive socio-economic development decisions through legal forms. On this basis, environmental protection participation in comprehensive decision-making is mainly achieved through the following two forms: First, participate in the decision-making process: preside over the formulation or formulation of environmental protection laws, regulations, rules, plans, standards; participate in the formulation and formulation of major environmental impacts Laws, regulations, policies and plans; suggestions and opinions on draft laws, regulations and policies related to environmental protection. The second is to establish a monitoring mechanism: implement environmental impact assessments on development strategies, socioeconomic policies, development planning, and construction projects; supervise departments and local environmental protection efforts; and monitor ecological conditions, environmental quality, and pollutant emissions.

4. Streamline the relationship between the central and local governments and focus on the integration of the roles of central and local governments

It is necessary to clarify the functions of local and central governments in the prevention and control of rural environmental pollution, especially the consistency of financial power and power. The central government must improve the system, provide a good institutional environment, provide policy guidance and application methods, and then be implemented by local governments. Local governments should be responsible for environmental pollution control in rich areas in the east; the central and local governments should bear the respective responsibilities for environmental pollution control in poor areas in the central and western regions; public infrastructure construction and public services with strong externalities in environmental pollution control The central government must assume greater responsibilities; for the construction of public infrastructure with strong community nature, local governments must assume greater responsibilities. To clarify that the grass-roots government is the concrete implementer of the rural environmental protection coordination mechanism, it should guide the county and township grass-roots governments to change their functions. On the one hand, to guide the county and township governments to withdraw from excessive involvement in the operation of township and village enterprises, while revitalizing the operation of township and village enterprises, and to effectively monitor the pollution of township and village enterprises; Mechanism to weaken the performance evaluation system based solely on economic development indicators, and establish a new evaluation system and incentive mechanism that includes sustainable development goals, including environmental quality and pollution control indicators, so as to improve grassroots government protection of the environment and pollution control Enthusiasm. ^[2]