China Policy Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2018 | Page 15

China Policy Journal
establishment of a pollution information-management
system, pollutant
measurement, pollution-loads calculation,
monitor-receiving water bodies,
and so forth directly lower the regional
environmental authorities’ efficiency
and weaken the system’s influence and
power.
2.2.3. Revenue Issue
The water-pollutant discharge-fee system
generates revenue and should be
earmarked for environmental expenditures
rather than for departmental
expenditures. The water-pollution discharge
fee is collected by local environmental
authorities. The 2003 pollution
discharge-fee-management regulation
stipulates that it is to be used as a specific
environmental protection fund, covering
the major pollution-source-control
program, the regional pollution-prevention
program, the new technology-application
program, and other
pollution-control programs. In theory,
local environmental protection bureaus
only act as fee-collection units, of
which the management fee should not
be included in the pollution-discharge
fee, though departments’ management
funding is in fact heavily reliant on the
pollution-discharge fee. The connection
between revenue and expenditure
reflects the contradiction in the design
of the fee system’s mechanism. In this
collection mode and in view of departmental
interests, it is not strange that
local environmental-protection departments
are unwilling to control pollution
for the purpose of obtaining more
revenue. Therefore, the actual amount
of the water-pollutant discharge fee is
embezzled and detained for other purposes.
A fairly large amount of the pollutant
fee falls outside of supervision,
as the financial department is unable
to acquire accurate information on the
fee situation, which directly slows down
the fee system’s development and lowers
the efficiency of pollutant control.
3. Effectiveness of the Water-
Pollutant Discharge-Fee System
3.1. System Performance
Historically, the pollution discharge-fee
program has been
applied in both developed and
developing countries worldwide. This
market-based strategy achieved results
on air, water, and solids pollution control
in different degrees. In France and
the Netherlands, the effluent charge is
designed to raise revenue for water-pollution-control
funding, ultimately
achieving improvements in water quality
(Tietenberg 1990). Wastewater dischargers
in Germany are regulated to
meet the minimum pollutant standard
and pay for half of the standard-exceeding
amount, while the related effluent
charge is calculated per pollution unit
and increased to control water pollution
in the short term (Zhang and
Xiong 2012). The practice in European
countries explored and developed
an independent and mature pollution-management
approach involving a
legal framework, a political mechanism,
organization corporation, revenue supervision
(Xiao 2003; Zhou 2006),
which achieved significant results in
water-pollution reduction. The mar-
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