Interpretation of the administrative law on the "coal to gas" project being "suspended"

　　In essence, the "coal to gas" project is an administrative activity of the state administrative organs to fulfill the responsibility of public administration of air pollution control in the northern region. The "coal to gas" project ended in "suspension", indicating that this administrative activity has a legal dilemma. As an administrative activity, "coal to gas" can be classified into six types of administrative ACTS, such as administrative planning, administrative coordination, administrative guidance, administrative contract, administrative payment and administrative orders. As a result of "coal to gas" in the administrative planning and lack of comprehensive and hysteresis, vertical and horizontal administrative coordination a lack of authority and administrative coordination lack of synchronicity variation for the administrative decision, administrative guidance, and lack of flexibility and insufficient of concluding administrative contracts process is competitive and perform process comprehensive deficiencies, executive pay face funding gap and the payment of the object is not precise and executive orders has legal basis deficiency and excess phenomenon of violations of the rights and interests of the other party, causing a huimin engineering into the project of popular discontent. This paper explains the reason why the "coal to gas" project was "stopped" from the perspective of administrative law doctrine, reveals the "disease" in the administrative rule of law of the project, and provides the theoretical basis for the national legislature and administrative organs to deal with the project from the administrative rule of law level.

　　The so-called "coal to gas" project, in short, refers to the construction project under the leadership of the state administrative organs, with the participation of various parties, through the replacement of loose coal by natural gas, to promote the clean transformation of loose coal, so as to effectively improve the air quality. Although the "coal to gas" project started in 2013, the administrative authorities promoted the project on a large scale in 2017. This is because at the beginning of 2017, the former ministry of environmental protection and other four ministries jointly issued the 2017 work plan for air pollution prevention and control in beijing-tianjin-hebei and the surrounding areas, which listed "2+26" cities as the first implementation scope of the winter clean heating plan in northern China. At the same time, 2017 was also the last year of the action plan for the prevention and control of air pollution promulgated by the state council in 2013. However, it is regrettable that in December 2017, the former ministry of environmental protection issued the urgent document "the coal to gas project" issued by the ministry of environmental protection. The state administration's goal of replacing coal with gas to significantly reduce coal burning and using clean energy such as natural gas to effectively reduce pollutants such as soot and sulfur dioxide has failed to address the severe smog problem in the north.