from there? But I think with the capacity building focus, there are about 60 international NGOs that are operating in China. Most foreign governments have pretty extensive environmental programs. The U.S. Government, as you know, doesn't do as much in Chinaparticularly in the NGO sector, more government-to-government work. And I think that there can be a lot done to help them use that space. And I'm going to stop.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Turner appears in the appendix.] Mr. FOARDE. Your timing is impeccable. That was 9 minutes, 59 seconds. Great work.

We are going to go on to the question and answer session. All four of you have given us rich themes to explore. I am going to exercise the prerogative of the Chair and ask questions and hear the answers for about the first 5 minutes, introduce my colleague next to me to carry on, and then the other members of the staff here. We will try to keep it to 5 minutes each so that everybody gets a chance to ask questions, and then we will do as many rounds as we have before 4:15 or until we are out of steam.

I guess I would direct this question to all of you, and you can step up to it if you would like for however long you like. I am interested in the general observation that a couple of you made about the environment and environmental issues having more political space in China with the government and the Communist Party than other issues, particularly human rights issues. Tell me why you think that is, and whether there are any lessons there to be learned that we might apply to other parts of Chinese public discourse.

Ms. ECONOMY. I will start with a little bit of history. I think there is a historical component to this in the sense that in the 1992 Rio Conference, which was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, half of what went on at Rio were negotiations on climate change and biodiversity, formal government-to-government talks. The other half of what went on was in the non-governmental sector. And here China was embarrassed. It was made very clear to the Chinese that they could not participate in the same way as other countries because they didn't have genuine non-governmental organizations. What they had were what Jennifer described as GONGOs, which at that time were substantially less sophisticated than they are today in fact.

And after Rio, I know that Liang Congjie, who started the first environmental non-governmental organization in China, had a discussion with one of the vice chairmen of the National Environmental Protection Agency, where that person encouraged him in fact to startup an NGO, in part to rectify this situation.

I think also that there has been a recognition on the part of the State Environmental Protection Administration that it cannot do its job alone and that it needs society to participate. It really is so poorly staffed-and Tad has done work on this so poorly staffed and so poorly funded, that in order to even begin to address the challenges, it needs to look outside the realm of the government. And so it has opened the space to these non-governmental organizations and to individuals and to the media as a form of enforcement at the local level, so that it uses these groups and the media to report back to them on what is going wrong.

And just to support what Jennifer was saying earlier, with the media, some of these television programs in China have brought the attention of Zhu Rongji to problems in the "ban on logging" campaigns or reforestation campaigns. That is how the central government leaders find out that what they are ordering is not being carried out.

Mr. FERRIS. I would add to that, just from my experience with the lawmaking process and the development of that process in the environmental sector, and why that is currently much more robust than, for example, the indoor environment or worker protection area. It has been my experience and that of my colleagues that I closely work with that currently a lot of government officials perceive that having a "green" reputation is something that is sought after very vigorously. Environmental protection is something that, one, has placed China more in the spotlight on the international stage than many other issues. Chinese leaders are going to pick an issue of concern to China and when they can choose among labor rights, environmental protection, et cetera, they will pick the environmental protection issue. Issues of significant contamination recently have been identified by Cheeka Peak Observatory, et cetera, in North America that is traced back to manufacturing operations in China. Reports like that are very much taken as an issue of concern to Chinese policymakers.

China has an increasing desire to be considered and respected on the international scene. Multilateral environmental negotiations constitute one area in which, if not in an outspoken fashion, China at least internally within the Group of 77 developing nationsmuch more than 77 now-is a leader. And looking more closely at the issue of government scrutiny of the environmental sector, I find that often in the area of environmental protection laws, the government authorities at the highest levels give the rulemakers a little more breathing room to innovate, and they look at environmental journalists as a means to augment their regulatory monitoring capacity.

There have been numerous instances in which an enforcement team from the resource-starved administration goes down to inspect a manufacturing facility. Everything looks fine. All the environmental protection facilities are in operation, the scrubbers are working, looks pretty nice, the effluent seems reasonably compliant with national standards, et cetera. Then that team goes away, and it is followed up by a number of journalists who come in, see that the environmental protection facilities are turned off, everything is different. No one is wearing their safety equipment. The effluent looks pretty bad, even by visual inspection. And then they report back to the national team. Often when officials need to work with minimal resources, the officials face a "fight the largest fire" kind of situation when they need to decide where they will go. However, in deciding to proceed with an investigation, often many bureaucratic signals are flipped that may alert the inspection target to the upcoming inspection. And then of course, the local facility knows long before the enforcement inspection team shows up.

So, increasingly, China is using environmental journalists, and in doing so is giving them a much broader mandate than would otherwise be typical of a reporter in China.

Mr. FOARDE. Let us go back to that in the next round, But thank you both.

Mr. FERRIS. Sure.

Mr. FOARDE. We are going to follow the practice that we used last year; that is, when a CECC staff member has a particular expertise or is looking into a particular issue, we invite him or her to join us here at the panel table and ask questions as well. In this case, I am delighted to introduce my friend and colleague, Keith Hand, who is a senior counsel working on the macrolevel, nationallevel legal reform issues, who helped set up this panel today. So we are delighted to give you the floor for 5 minutes to ask some questions.

Mr. HAND. Thank you. And thanks for a very informative set of presentations today, and your time and expertise. One of the themes that I think is coming out in the discussion is the level of citizen involvement in environmental law and on environmental issues. That is something of great interest to the Commission, particularly citizens' use of the legal system.

Could you please go into a little more detail about what types of legal mechanisms are available to the average citizen in cases of very serious pollution, whether such mechanisms are being put to use, and how effective they are. This question is directed to the entire panel.

Mr. ROHAN. As a lawyer, I will try to address this question. There are, as Tad mentioned, a lot of laws in China, but there are great ambiguities in this body of laws. Look, for example, at the new Environmental Impact Assessment law. It talks about how citizens will have the opportunity to participate in some sort of hearing or forum. It doesn't say a whole lot more than that. There is no sense that there are going to be a certain number of days that elapse after a draft document is put out, and then citizens will be able to provide written comments, and the things that an American lawyer thinks about in terms of administrative procedure. It is just not that well defined. So the lawyers, as a result, are working with these vague provisions and trying to find out where they can go with them, and often they can go very far with them just because of that vagueness.

As an American lawyer, you think, "Well, there are certain evidentiary standards. I need to have a certain showing of proof that that effluent caused those ducks to die." Using very real-life examples of the kind of legal case that is going on now. And a Chinese judge isn't looking for this intense evidentiary burden. It is almost like there is a bit more of "what are the equities of the situation?" And so that is maybe one example of how the Chinese lawyers are seeing that they really have great latitude.

In terms of what might be the proper development of Chinese environmental law, I am not sure Chinese environmental lawyers would say, "Well, really what we need is a lot of very strict regulation to interpret all of these laws and make it all perfectly crystal clear." They like having the operating space. That is something that is tolerated and is indeed part of the legal culture, not only for the public interest lawyers, but the judges and the government officials. They all sort of operate within the same milieu.

Ms. TURNER. I am not a lawyer, but could I say something? This just brings to mind when you think about mechanisms, there is a lot of experimentation going on, and one notably is the World Bank and its environmental projects. The bank makes public participation a requirement. And the Chinese Government hemmed and hawed, and went back and forth on this question. And what I think will be interesting to see is that this is also a way to an experiment. It is a safe way. And so now the Chinese want the loans, and so in many World Bank projects there is a public participation component. And I don't know if the hope is eventually that some of these vague laws could put a little bit of meat on it or something. Do you want to say anything about public participation? That is a very concrete example.

Mr. FERRIS. Well, in terms of the legal basis, Brian mentioned the Environmental Impact Assessment law. Often you will see layers and layers of laws, and within those are specific, very brief provisions that require solicitation of comments or opinions on draft measures, or the environmental impacts of this activity or project. What is needed is more guidance. What I find often in dealing with Chinese Government officials, especially at the local level where a lot of these activities are initiated before they reach the central government attention, is that the local officials need guidance. They are very much, I wouldn't say afraid, but they are resistant to being a test case for the implementation of "new laws." They don't want to be the first, and therefore possibly run up against the next higher level of authority, because they are perceived as doing the wrong thing.

A lot of the activities that Brian mentioned are moving toward this kind of test case. And we are developing this kind of understanding, this guidance. But still, there is no national guideline for how to approach these issues. For example, when they solicit comments on these draft laws, there's nothing that says what you have to do with them. My colleague who is sitting behind me from the National People's Congress, who drafted many of China's environmental laws, received thousands of comments on the drafts of laws published in the People's Daily, et cetera, but often then it became an additional burden on the staff, on the resources of the committee within the National People's Congress to pore through those and decide which to consider and which not to, and without any guidance as to how they were to approach that task. It is a good thing that is gaining momentum. But again, we're still at a very early stage.

Mr. FOARDE. Thank you all. We are going to move on to questions from our colleague Tiffany McCullen, who represents Under Secretary of Commerce Grant Aldonas.

Ms. MCCULLEN. I would like to thank all of the panelists for coming and sharing with us today. You have a lot of informative information. I wanted to ask Elizabeth, if you could follow up on one of the statements you made and open it up to the panelists if anyone else would like to answer. Could you give any other examples of United States companies being involved in environmental cleanup initiatives in China or doing things like Shell and BP that you mentioned in your opening statement.

Ms. ECONOMY. I am tasked to think of U.S. companies off the top of my head, but I think BP is British Petroleum. I am sure there

are some.

MS. TURNER. BP solar. I know BP Solar-I know it's not cleanup but they are helping to install some solar energy equipment for rural villages in Tibet. I know the BP folks, but I am sure that's one thing they have been doing.

Mr. ROHAN. One other example, maybe not right on point, Ford Motor Company. Ford has just started selling cars in China, but they have been active in China for quite some time and have a small grant making program that has been engaged on a variety of issues, including environmental, for some time.

Mr. FERRIS. Just in terms of general comments concerning transnational corporations from the United States and what they're doing in China, I see two significant movements. One is that for the most progressive of these companies, the drivers are not necessarily the Chinese laws, although they generally seriously take those measures into account; it is the corporate environmental health and safety [EHS] standards. Often they will get into very protracted discussions and analyses of details of Chinese law that even the Chinese regulators have never addressed and they are driven by the fact that, for example, a particular corporate code of conduct will require compliance with the letter of the Chinese law even though, in reality, you may not be able to find all relevant laws in China. Often, a lot of progressive corporate EHS initiatives are driven in this fashion.

Another significant development is that some of these companies are getting involved in EHS audits of their suppliers. Increasingly, government regulators see this as a very significant activity to monitor as a bellwether for understanding how local Chinese companies think about things such as child labor, environmental protection matters, et cetera, because the suppliers may become aware that they may not get that next big contract if they fail a particular test when the auditors come by.

Ms. MCCULLEN. Thank you.

Mr. FOARDE. Melissa Allen represents Senator Chuck Hagel.

Ms. ALLEN. Thank you for taking the time to be with us this afternoon. Something that's been raised here this afternoon is the relationship between increasing environmental degradation and the effects it's having on overall public health in China, and I was hopeful that maybe one or all of you would comment on what the central government is doing to formulate an overall strategy to address these concerns and perhaps cite policy initiatives that may be underway as examples.

MS. TURNER. The push in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou for lead-free gas and also a little bit of a "green" Olympic impetus to this as well-also changing from coal heating to natural gas heating in Beijing. The people in the cities-the leadership in Beijing, too-I mean you can see the sky now in Beijing. So I think the whole human health question there was big. And a number of universities have been doing studies on impact of leaded gas on human health. So that's the first one that leaps to mind.

Ms. ECONOMY. That's an interesting example because it goes back to your question. General Motors was actually instrumental