On October 31, 2025, State Council Decree No. 820 promulgated the "Regulations on Ecological Environment Monitoring" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which will come into effect on January 1, 2026. As a fundamental administrative regulation in the field of ecological environment monitoring in China, the promulgation of the Regulation marks a new stage in the construction of China's ecological environment monitoring system. Ecological environment monitoring is an important foundation for strengthening ecological environment protection and implementing ecological environment management. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to ecological environment monitoring work and have made a series of decisions and deployments to strengthen ecological environment monitoring work. In his important speech at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection in 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly stated the need to "strengthen ecological monitoring and assessment", "accelerate the establishment of a modern ecological and environmental monitoring system, and improve the integrated monitoring network of sky, earth, and sea". After long-term efforts, especially the rapid development during the 14th Five Year Plan period, China's ecological environment monitoring work has achieved significant results. From the perspective of public monitoring, China has established the world's largest national ecological environment quality monitoring network with complete coverage of elements, scientific and reasonable layout, and advanced technological means. The digital transformation has achieved phased results, and the monitoring coverage continues to expand and the monitoring accuracy continues to improve. From self-monitoring, it can be seen that the awareness of enterprises and institutions to fulfill their legal monitoring obligations continues to increase, the standardization of monitoring behavior continues to improve, and the quality of monitoring data is steadily improving. Ecological environment monitoring has played an indispensable and powerful supporting role in the historic, turning point, and global changes in the construction of ecological civilization and the significant steps taken in the construction of a beautiful China. At the same time, the deepening of ecological civilization and the construction of a beautiful China have put forward new and higher requirements for ecological monitoring work. From the actual situation, there are still prominent problems in the current ecological environment monitoring work, such as the need to improve monitoring capabilities and levels, and the urgent need to strengthen the quality assurance of monitoring data, which are not in line with the new situation and requirements. Effective measures, including strengthening institutional construction, need to be taken to effectively solve these problems. From the perspective of institutional construction, before the promulgation of the Regulations, the provisions on ecological environment monitoring were scattered among more than 60 laws and administrative regulations, which were not systematic and comprehensive enough, and only targeted at specific fields, making it difficult to meet the needs of ecological environment monitoring work for institutional construction. On the basis of relevant provisions of current laws and administrative regulations, strengthening institutional integration and formulating specialized administrative regulations on ecological environment monitoring is an important measure to implement the important instructions and directives of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee. It is also an objective and internal requirement to further improve the standardization and legalization level of ecological environment work and do a good job in ecological environment monitoring under the new situation. The overall idea of formulating the Regulation is to focus on the prominent problems faced by ecological environment monitoring, improve institutional design, and strive to enhance pertinence and effectiveness; Based on the fundamental administrative regulations in the field of ecological environment monitoring, the focus is on establishing basic systems and clarifying common requirements; Coordinate and connect with the currently being compiled Ecological Environment Code and other relevant laws and administrative regulations to form a joint institutional force. In response to the actual situation and problems of ecological monitoring work, the "Regulations" clearly stipulate that regulating ecological environment monitoring activities, improving ecological environment monitoring capabilities and levels, ensuring the quality of ecological environment monitoring data, and better playing the important role of ecological environment monitoring in supporting ecological civilization and building a beautiful China, and serving high-quality economic and social development are legislative goals, in order to unify and guide specific institutional design, and achieve a comprehensive plan. The Regulation has made comprehensive and systematic provisions on ecological environment monitoring, focusing on clarifying overall requirements, strengthening public monitoring, regulating self-monitoring, and regulating technical services, striving to build a unified and standardized ecological environment monitoring system. Regarding the overall requirements, the Regulation clearly stipulates that ecological environment monitoring work should implement the Party and state's line, principles, policies, decision-making arrangements, adhere to monitoring in accordance with the law, scientific monitoring, and integrity monitoring, and establish a monitoring mechanism led by the government, coordinated by departments, responsible by enterprises and institutions, participated by society, and supervised by the public; Conducting ecological environment monitoring should comply with ecological environment monitoring norms and standards; The country strengthens the construction of ecological environment monitoring capacity, accelerates the establishment of a modern monitoring system, comprehensively improves the automation, digitization, and intelligence level of ecological environment monitoring, and encourages and supports the deep development and application of ecological environment monitoring data. In terms of strengthening public monitoring, in order to further consolidate responsibilities, the Regulation clearly requires the government and its relevant departments to conscientiously fulfill their ecological environment monitoring responsibilities, carry out or organize public monitoring such as ecological environment quality monitoring, ecological environment supervision monitoring, and emergency monitoring of sudden ecological environment events in accordance with laws, regulations, and the needs of ecological environment protection work. In order to coordinate and integrate monitoring resources, and maximize joint efforts, it is stipulated that the ecological environment management department, together with relevant departments, shall organize national and local ecological environment monitoring networks and promote interconnectivity in accordance with the principles of reasonable layout, complete functions, classification and grading, and joint construction and sharing; Unify the planning of national and local ecological environment quality monitoring stations, strengthen station management and operational guarantees. To ensure the consistency and authority of ecological environment quality monitoring information, it is clarified that ecological environment quality monitoring information shall be uniformly released by the ecological environment competent department of the State Council and the ecological environment competent departments of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and no unit or individual shall illegally release it. For self-monitoring by enterprises and institutions, the Regulation focuses on further strengthening regulations, stipulating that self-monitoring should be carried out in accordance with relevant norms and standards for ecological environment monitoring, and monitoring plans should be formulated. The main monitoring points should install and use video surveillance equipment in accordance with regulations and be connected to relevant departments; Use monitoring equipment that complies with national standards and regulations, and conduct regular maintenance, upkeep, periodic calibration, and verification. Automatic monitoring equipment should be connected to the ecological environment management department; Establish a sound monitoring data quality management system and keep original monitoring records. It is not allowed to implement or explicitly or implicitly suggest that relevant units or individuals engage in fraudulent behavior towards monitoring data. In response to the widespread participation of technical service institutions in ecological environment monitoring and their important responsibility for ensuring the quality of monitoring data, the Regulation has established a chapter on "Technical Services" to raise the threshold for technical service institutions, requiring them to meet corresponding conditions and file with the competent department of ecological environment; Clarify behavioral norms, including independently, objectively, and fairly conducting relevant business, not accepting commissions beyond their business scope or violating agreements to delegate entrusted business, and not accepting commissions that may have conflicts of interest at the same time; Monitoring services should comply with ecological environment monitoring norms and standards, establish a monitoring data quality management system, and store monitoring data, records, and other related materials in accordance with regulations. No falsification of monitoring data is allowed in any way. Preventing and punishing the falsification of ecological environment monitoring data is a key issue addressed by the Regulation. In this regard, the Regulation adheres to a problem oriented and systematic approach, seizes key nodes, and makes targeted institutional arrangements from strengthening the responsibilities of the government and its relevant departments, consolidating the main responsibility of enterprises and institutions, strengthening the management of technical service institutions, strengthening supervision and inspection, and increasing punishment, focusing on improving the institutional mechanisms for preventing and punishing monitoring data fraud. The law alone is not enough. Next, relevant parties still need to do a lot of solid and meticulous work to promote the true implementation of the Regulations, and play their due role in ensuring and supporting the high-quality development of ecological environment monitoring, promoting new and greater progress in ecological civilization and the construction of a beautiful China. (The author is the Director of the Fourth Legislative Bureau of the Ministry of Justice) (News Agency)