“…In recent years, to prevent environmental pollution and improve the ecological environment, the Chinese government has been continuously improving its environmental legal system (Fowlie et al, 2012;Gu et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020;Zhong et al, 2021). In particular, after the implementation of the Legislation Law of the People's Republic of China (2015 Amendment), local governments (municipalities with districts established) are allowed to exercise greater legislative power than before, especially in the realm of environmental regulation, marking a new starting point on China's environmental regulation dynamics (Wang et al, 2019a;Wang et al, 2019b;Wang et al, 2021). In general, from the Amendment of the Legislative Law in 2015 to the end of December 2017, a total of 206 prefecture-level cities promulgated 398 local laws, with an average of 14.74 issued by provinces and autonomous regions.…”