Newsletter
TOXIC CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES MANAGEMENT ACT AMENDED
On 3 January 2007, the President promulgated amendments to the Toxic Chemical Substances Management Act. The main points of the amendments are outlined below:
‧More stringent regulation of the transportation of toxic chemicals is adopted. Measures in-clude the following requirements: handlers must employ specialist technical management staff; they must fit vehicles with real-time tracking systems, and maintain such systems in normal operation; they must dispatch emergency response personnel to the site of an emergency incident within two hours, to pro-vide emergency response and subsequent cleanup; they must collectively set up a na-tional hazard prevention organization for toxic chemicals, to assist with protection measures, emergency response, and subsequent cleanup of accidents. Depending on circumstances, violations of the relevant provisions will at-tract administrative fines of NT$60,000 to 300,000, NT$100,000 to 500,000, or NT$1 to 5 million.
‧The existing requirement for handlers of Class III toxic chemicals to file a risk reduction and emergency response plan with the authorities is extended to handlers of chemicals in Classes I and II. If a handler has failed to take active prevention measures and an accident occurs, the handler will be subject to an administrative fine of NT$100,000 to 500,000.
‧Different types of activity involving toxic chemicals are categorized into those requiring the prior issuance of a license, those requiring prior registration, and those requiring prior approval.
‧New provisions require that if a toxic chemi-cals handler is ordered to partially or fully suspend work or operations, or if, after being set a deadline by the environmental authorities to correct shortcomings, a handler itself de-cides to suspend work or operations, then be-fore resuming work or operations the handler must submit to the environmental authorities a statement that improvements have been com-pleted, and documents evidencing such im-provements, and these must be reviewed and approved by the environmental authorities before the handler may resume work or op-erations.
‧The scope of persons eligible to receive awards for their outstanding contributions in the areas of improvement of hazard prevention equipment and reduction of operating risk in the handling of toxic chemicals, is extended from handlers and responsible officers to also include specialist personnel, academics, and experts.