The Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China is a relatively young ministry. It is assigned relatively less power and fewer employees than other existing ministries, which results in its heavy dependence on local environmental protection bureaus (EPB). The problem is that local EPBs do not only get controlled by higher EPB but also by local governments whose performance is assessed mainly by economic development. Therefore, the local governments have loose policies on companies that producing water pollution. Additionally, the financial support of EPBs comes from pollution fines instead of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which makes it difficult for the ministry to manage local EPBs.