Current situation, existing problems and suggestions of the boundary demarcation of mine safety production responsibilities in the field of natural resources

In order to find out the boundaries and existing problems of mine safety production responsibilities in the field of natural resources, and continuously improve the safety production management system and mechanism, the author mainly collects and organizes relevant first-hand information by participating in the comprehensive inspection team of the Office of State Council Work Safety Committee, the supervision and inspection of work safety by the Ministry of Natural Resources, and holding expert consultation meetings. Based on a large number of field research and empirical research, this paper systematically carries out the research on the boundary and division of mine safety production responsibilities in the field of natural resources for the first time, compares and analyzes the mine safety production responsibilities of relevant ministries and commissions, 25 provinces （autonomous regions and municipalities） including Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, etc, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and draws the following understandings. The Ministry of Natural Resources is the administrative department responsible for managing safety production. The core of mineral resource management is the scientific allocation of resources and the promotion of rational development and utilization of mineral resources. The laws and regulations such as the Mineral Resources Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Mining Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China do not specify the industry regulatory authorities for coal mine and non-coal mine safety production. According to the “the three-dimensional regulations” of various ministries and commissions, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Energy Administration should be the industry regulatory authorities in charge of coal mines and non-coal mines safety production responsibilities, but the supervision departments of safety production industry of coal mines and non-coal mines in various provinces （autonomous regions and municipalities） are quite different, especially for non-coal mines, and only the natural resources departments of Hebei and Shanxi provinces are designated as the industry regulatory authorities of non-coal mines, which is appropriate and debatable. The emergency management and natural resources departments are not clear enough in the safety production supervision responsibility such as the verification of potential safety hazards and the acceptance of closed tailings ponds, and there are disputes over whether the sales tailings ponds are included in the category of geological disasters. Abandoned mines without owners formed by historical legacies have unclear regulatory responsibilities, which can easily lead to a lack of supervision. The following suggestions are put forward: firstly, to strengthen the top-level design of safety production, and it is recommended to clarify the boundary of mine safety production supervision responsibilities between ministries and commissions from the level of laws and regulations, and clarify the industry authorities in charge of coal mine and non-coal mine safety production; secondly, to strengthen the macro guiding role of the mineral resources exploitation program, scientifically allocate resources, and scientifically and reasonably set up mining rights in accordance with the law is the core responsibility of the mineral resources management of the natural resources department; thirdly, to further strengthen the coordination and linkage mechanism between the natural resources department and the emergency management and other mine safety production supervision departments.