China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, convened its bimonthly session last week. During the week-long session, lawmakers will deliberate a series of draft laws and regulations. On Tuesday, they reviewed and discussed the country's first soil pollution law.

Chinese lawmakers began the second reading of a draft for the country's first soil pollution law, which increased the responsibilities of government and polluters in controlling and correcting pollution.

The draft says "to clarify responsibilities and ensure the quality of rehabilitation, farmland polluters are required to make rehabilitation plans, to put them on government record, and carry out the plans." Upon completion, polluters should entrust professional institutions to evaluate repair effects.

The draft made it clear that it was the local government's responsibility to conduct pollution risk evaluation and land rehabilitation if the land use rights had been retrieved and the former owner was responsible for its pollution.

Governmental environment protection departments at or above the provincial level should summon leading officials at or above the municipal level for admonitory talks on problems in their jurisdiction, such as serious soil pollution, inadequate prevention and control measures, and strong public discontent over pollution.

Local governments at or above the county level should enhance oversight and inspection on illegal discharge of poisonous and harmful materials into such areas. But some lawmakers think the penalties are not strong enough. Lawmaker Li Shiming said the penalties for severe polluters are too weak. For example, Article 85 says it fines only 500,000 yuan (around 76,000 US dollars) to heavy polluters. He thinks the law should set no specific limit for fines.

Lawmaker Dou Shuhua said, "Currently, we don't have a unified national standard for the soil pollution monitor system, the law should ask for the establishment on that."

China is escalating its national war against pollution. The top legislature revised the law on air pollution in 2015 and the law on water pollution earlier this year, restricting various sources of pollution and making environmental data more transparent. Currently, there is no dedicated law on soil pollution, but just a handful of provisions scattered across other laws. The deliberated draft law is expected to address this legal void.‍