Patthapong dissects the Senate’s draft Clean Air Bill, urging the establishment of a joint committee and calling for solutions to three major issues that favor capital interests, eliminate citizen rights, and block decentralization.
On 2 Sep 2026 GMT+7, during a House of Representatives session reviewing the Clean Air Management Bill returned from the Senate, Patthapong Leelaphat, Chiang Mai MP from the People’s Party, strongly opposed the Senate’s amendments, pointing out that they favor capital groups and undermine citizen rights.
Patthapong stated that the bill had been stalled in the Senate for over a year amid a PM2.5 crisis in the North, where pollution levels once soared above 900 micrograms per cubic meter. Upon its return, the bill showed key alterations in three main areas: 1) Favoring capital by increasing private sector representation on all committees, including technical committees, and reducing industrial fines from a maximum of 50 million baht to just 5 million baht—less severe than penalties for citizens who burn forests—while also removing the Pollution Release and Transfer Register (PRTR); 2) Removing citizen rights by cutting public consultation mechanisms on polluting activities, eliminating temporary protection systems, and removing class-action lawsuit provisions; and 3) Blocking decentralization by changing the provincial committee chair from the PAO chief back to the provincial governor, shifting problem-solving away from local authorities to centralized control.
Patthapong concluded by emphasizing that he could not accept a law diluted by unelected individuals and called on the House of Representatives to pass a resolution to form a joint special committee of MPs and Senators to amend the bill for the genuine benefit of the public.