"This law requires enterprises to use energy-efficient, low-polluting clean production technologies, and asks the economic management authorities (SDPC and SETC) to promulgate lists of equipment to be retired. It requires sorting and washing of high-sulfur and high-ash coal, which would lead to marketing of coal that could be used more efficiently in end use equipment. As a result of this legislation and the more forceful implementation of environmental regulations, many small, inefficient and heavily polluting plants shut down and mines were closed. This has led to greater opportunity for efficient higher quality mines and plants to open." (http://projects.wri.org/sd-pams-database/china/law-prevention-and-control-air-pollution)
"The law was originally adopted on September 5, 1987; amended according to the Decision on Revising the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution on August 29, 1995; revised on April 29, 2000; and most recently revised again on August 29, 2015." (http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/law/law-on-the-prevention-and-control-of-atmospheric-pollution/)