National Development and Reform Commission: Center of Regulatory Power

The NDRC is a power regulatory body with a headquarters in Beijing as well as at the provincial level. We met with energy regulators and they had some interesting things to impart. First, they voiced concern that the energy intesity of China's economy was growing, and that polluting industries are growing rapidly, with industrial sector growth at 18.5% in 2006. They were concerned that industry in China is too slow to adopt new and cleaner technologies for their plants and facilities. They also noted that they do not the power to regulate standards within China's Special Economic Zones.

They stated frankly that a large part of the problem in pollution was that local governments are not incentivized to meet environmental targets and comply with environmental regulations.

On the international front, they said that the United States and China should cooperate more, saying that they were quite pleased that in 2007, the U.S. DoE consulted China on boosting Strategic Petroleum Reserve allocations before making a decision on allocations to the reserve. As sign of progress, they noted that a 2007 DoE report to Congress on oil was not critical of China.