- Department:Comprehensive Planning Division
The Legislative Yuan passed the third reading of the Amendment to the Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act on December 21, 2018, and office of the President order is hereby given, for the promulgation of the amendment to "Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act", and the renaming of the Act as "Toxic and Concerned Chemical Substances Control Act" (TCSCA) on January 16, 2019, which further advanced the country’s source management of toxics and chemical substances, further expands the management of chemical substances, and reduces operational risks.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said that there were seven major highlights in this amendment, including: the addition of "Concerned Chemical Substances" (which will facilitate expansion of the number of controlled substances and implementation of classified management); adding a chapter on " Accident Prevention and Emergency Response " (including make public the complete Risk Prevention and Response Plans for public review, the handler should assign emergency responders, etc.); establishing the " National Chemical Substance Management Board " (it shall be convened by the Premier to integrate the inter-ministerial matters); setting up a Fund (it may collect handling/operating fees from handlers to set up a fund for the use of risk management); shortening the handlers’ accident notifying/reporting time (from 1 hour to 30 minutes); prohibiting the trading of the monitored toxic and concerned chemical substances via electronic commerce (for online shopping platform operators, if they fail to exercise due diligence by acting as the intermediary between traders with no permits, they shall be fined not less than NT$60,000 nor more than NT$300,000); and the addition of provisions of the recovery of unlawful gains, whistle-blower, etc.
The EPA stressed that, in accordance with the provisions of Article 75 of this amended Act, except that the relevant provisions on the Board, whistle-blowers, tip-offs from the public and rewards, etc., shall take effect on the date of promulgation, otherwise the provisions shall take effect one year after the promulgation. Subsequently the EPA shall formulate or amend more than 30 regulations. Please pay attention to the relevant information of the draft preview and public hearings of the regulations, and provide further advice.
Please refer to the EPA's Environmental Protection Regulations website (https://oaout.moenv.gov.tw/law/EngLawContent.aspx?lan=E&id=210) for articles of the Amendment.
