EIA permit under the principle of Administrative Licensing Law: application and development

China first published the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People's Republic of China (Environmental Impact Assessment Law) and then the Administrative Licensing Law of the People's Republic of China (Administrative Licensing Law). After Administrative Licensing Law came into force in 2004, the approval of project EIA was explicitly included in the administrative licensing matters by State Council, and thus the EIA review and approval should be conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Administrative Licensing Law. Currently, the EIA approval work conducted by some local authorities is far from the requirements of the Administrative Licensing Law. In order to improve the quality of EIA approval, it is necessary to comprehensively implement the legal principles stipulated in the Administrative Licensing Law, including the principle of legitimacy, the principle of openness and fairness, the principle of public participation, the principle of reliance protection and the principle of supervision, etc. It was suggested that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment should actively bring the revision of the Environmental Impact Assessment Law to the agenda to organically link this law with the Administrative Licensing Law, so as to meet the practical needs of building a government under the rule of law, comprehensively administrating according to law and establishing a beautiful China under the new situation.