The ministry released a notice that it had also suspended all hydropower project assessments along the middle reaches of the Jinshajiang River from June 11 to protect the local environment. The two suspended hydropower plants are just downstream from an area where China's three major rivers—the Nujiang, the Lancangjiang and the Jinshajiang—run parallel to each other for some 170 km. This region, covering 1.7 million hectares, was included in the World Heritage List as a natural site of international importance by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2003 for its unique, pristine landscape and wildlife.

Since 2004, environmental regulators and NGOs have been fighting against power companies' plans to build hydropower plants near the world heritage site. Local governments, though, often say new power facilities are essential to generate income for locals and support the projects.

Between 2005 and 2007, MEP, then called the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), launched annual "green storms" of environmental inspections, publicizing the country's major violators of environmental laws and issuing fines and production suspensions. During the 2007 "green storm," the SEPA instituted a new punishment for cities and companies with serious violations—no new project would be approved until old problems were fixed.

With the government's 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) economic stimulus plan, which includes myriad construction projects, MEP has planned a new round of inspections starting in July on construction that began after July 2008. These projects will be appraised based on their EIAs and how well companies implement changes requested by regulators. The ministry will also rate projects on the design, installation and operation of their pollution-prevention facilities.

The MEP said its environmental bar is not bent to favor economics over environmental protection. Between November 2008 and May 2009, MEP suspended or rejected 29 new projects, representing lost or delayed investment of 146.7 billion yuan ($21.6 billion).

MEP's upcoming national inspection campaign will be its first "green storm" since being upgraded to a ministry in March 2008. Niu Wenyuan, a Chinese Academy of Sciences research fellow on sustainable development, told Beijing Business Today that he expects this round to be more significant than previous ones because MEP sent a message to local governments and businesses that the Central Government would not relax environmental supervision in pursuit of economic growth, even amid the global financial crisis.

While encouraged by the news of upcoming inspections, some environmental NGOs are unsatisfied with MEP's policy of accelerating approval of some stimulus plan projects based on people's livelihood, infrastructure, environmental improvement and post-disaster reconstruction. "We want to know how privileged projects are selected and how the procedures are shortened," said Li Bo, Director of environmental NGO Friends of Nature.