On December 30, 2016, the Environmental Protection Administration announced a revised "Regulations Governing Collection of Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fees ", which was implemented on July 1, 2017. In response to the introduction of the new policy, this project actively communicates with the outside parties before its implementation, and facilitates promotion activities such as the explanation of levies and analysis of issues, as well as the analysis of levies after full implementation and important issues in different aspects. Three sessions of expert forum were held to complete the adjustment of refund policies, discussion on the timing and consideration of adjusting the maintenance fees and establishment of the overall assessment framework for the Fund's revenue and expenditure to improve the comprehensiveness of the collection system of maintenance fees. The results of the project include:
1.Examine and analyze the actual effects of the collection policy of maintenance fees. The project compares the various collection rates before and after the policy revision, and the trends show that it achieves the objectives for revising the original maintenance fees.
2.This project organizes the information of various environmental funds and non-business specialty funds to assess their effects on and competition for the soil pollution fund.
3.This project assists in resolving doubts about the fees. A consultation hotline and an email box are established to handle the consultation tasks. All inquiries are recorded in texts and reported in meetings. Questions are compiled and updated in the Q＆A section to serve as a reference for the clarification of policies.
4.Completes tasks related to the collection policies of maintenance fees for soil and groundwater remediation, including producing presentation slides to be used in briefing sessions, and holding 16 briefing sessions on policies and requirements. The results were good as the opinions from various sources were compiled, allowing for analysis and review of issues happened after the formal collection and providing response measures that can be included in the planning for future policy revisions.
5.Collect and compile information on the collection measures of various pollution sites in the world, including Superfund of the US, "Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan" of Canada, local subsidies for pollution sites in the UK, "Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund" of New Zealand and "Soil Contamination Countermeasures Fund" in Japan. Analysis are conducted in the aspects of regulatory background, fund design and application criteria to improve the strategic direction of our fund's collection.
6.This project proposes recommendations for refund and transformation in which 50-70% of refund can be reduced annually. This benefit-cost ratio of this transformative policy can reach 2.3 to 3.3, which is expected to greatly reduce the burden on the refund of remediation fee.
7.This project refers to initiation of fee adjustment to the water pollution fund, air pollution fund, resource recovery and management fund, as well as education fund to analyze the considerations for the initiation of fee adjustment for soil pollution fund. The normal factors discussed annually and the non-normal factors discussed in intermediate and long-term planning are used as part of the assessment for the adjustment of soil pollution fund charges.
8.This project completes three sessions of expert forum to improve its quality. For the sustaining operation of the soil pollution fund, the project discussed (1) the diversification of the fund's financial resources, (2) the evaluation of the fund's performance, and (3) the transformation of refund policy and fee adjustments. Recommendations from many experts are collected to be included in the references for future policy revisions.
