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DPP obstructs floor meeting to demand Jiang report
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) obstructed yesterday’s legislative meeting to protest against the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) refusal to countenance asking Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) to report on the Executive Yuan’s resolution to suspend construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.
DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmakers on the Procedure Committee tabled a motion to revise the agenda for Friday’s floor meeting, calling on the KMT to have Jiang deliver a special report on the suspension of work on the plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮).
DPP lawmakers said the Executive Yuan’s decision to suspend construction represents a major policy change, which would require the premier to report to the legislature and be questioned on the change.
“Having the premier report to the legislature gives lawmakers the opportunity to question the policy change and to let [the premier] elaborate on it. This is a sincere move to secure both the lawmakers’ rights to interpellation and the Executive Yuan’s chance to clarify the matter,” DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) said.
However, the KMT says the resolution to suspend the construction of the plant’s No. 2 reactor and seal up its No. 1 reactor is not a major policy change.
“The suspension would keep the plant on its ‘last breath,’ which is different from ‘terminating’ it,” KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said.
“[The plant] will still exist, so the Executive Yuan thinks that this is not a policy change. That is our [the KMT’s] interpretation as well,” he said.
The absence of a consensus between the KMT and the opposition resulted in a call for a show of hands, which ended with the KMT — as the majority party — voting the motion down.
The DPP decided to obstruct the floor meeting in the afternoon to protest the KMT’s vote, which led to the two parties conducting another round of closed doors negotiations.
A question-and-answer session had been included in the agenda for the floor meeting, but Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) showed up at 5:30pm to announce that the KMT-DPP negotiations had broken down and so the floor meeting was over for the day.
source: Taipei Times
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