A NEW environmental law will be formulated if the Environmental Quality Act 1974, which is being reviewed, requires substantial amendments, said Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin.

Amendments are to provide greater enforcement power to the Department of Environment (DoE). 

She said the ministry was currently studying the amendments to the existing Act, as well as engaging with stakeholders.

“We will have many engagements, not only with the industry players, but also academics, civil society groups and others to get their views on how we can improve this act.

“If the existing law requires too many amendments, we will formulate a new law. What is important is that the law is able control pollution more systematically and ensure reasonable penalty against offenders,” she told a media conference at the Pasir Gudang DoE office today.

Earlier, Yeo, accompanied by the ministry’s secretary-general (Environment and Climate Change) Dr K. Nagulendran; Johor Local Government, Urban Well-being and Environment Committee chairman Tan Chen Choon; DoE director-general Norlin Jaafar and Johor DoE director Mohd Famey Yusoff visited the Photoionisation Detector Station at the Pasir Gudang Municipal Council Stadium here.

Pasir Gudang is the first industrial city in the country to be equipped with a monitoring system capable of detecting air quality and hazardous airborne pollutants to provide early warning in the event of any contamination.

The system involves the installation of 25 Photoionisation Detector Stations and six units of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy around Pasir Gudang and two units of Gas Chromatography — Mass Spectrometry and Gas Chromatography – Flame Ionisation Detector. – Bernama, February 23, 2020.