Hampyeong-gun Launches Petition Campaign for 1 Million Residents to Establish 'Nuclear Safety Grant Tax'

Sang-ik Lee, Hampyeong County Governor, Joins SNS Challenge

Hampyeong-gun, Jeollanam-do announced on the 22nd that it will carry out a petition campaign to collect one million signatures by July 31 to urge the establishment of a Nuclear Safety Grant Tax, together with an alliance of 23 local governments near nuclear power plants.

The 23 cities, counties, and districts near nuclear power plants are designated as radiation emergency planning zones (areas within 30 km of nuclear power plants) and have suffered direct and indirect economic disadvantages for decades. However, government protection and support projects for residents, such as radiation disaster prevention and safety management, remain minimal.

Accordingly, the National Alliance of Areas Near Nuclear Power Plants (Chairman Kim Young-gil, Mayor of Jung-gu, Ulsan) is promoting the establishment of a Nuclear Safety Grant Tax to secure funding for projects to ensure the safety and protection of residents from radiation.

The “Local Allocation Tax Act Amendment” bill, introduced by Representative Park Sung-min, proposes increasing the domestic tax ratio of local allocation tax resources from the current 19.24% to 19.30%, an increase of 0.06%, to secure the tax base for the Nuclear Safety Grant Tax and provide support to the 23 local governments designated as radiation emergency planning zones.

Currently, in Hampyeong-gun, over 2,500 residents have participated in the petition campaign to urge the establishment of the Nuclear Safety Grant Tax since the 1st of this month.

Lee Sang-ik, Mayor of Hampyeong-gun, said, “We will actively carry out the one million signature campaign to urge the establishment of the Nuclear Safety Grant Tax and do our best to establish the tax to secure funding for resident protection projects such as radiation disaster prevention.”

Meanwhile, to successfully promote the one million signature campaign, Mayor Lee Sang-ik participated in an SNS challenge on the 22nd, following the challenge from Kim Young-rok, Governor of Jeollanam-do, and Kim Han-jong, Mayor of Jangseong-gun. He nominated Kim San, Mayor of Muan-gun, Representative Lee Gae-ho, and Representative Seo Sam-seok as the next challengers.

The three nominees designated by Mayor Lee will post photos of their participation in the challenge on their social networking services (SNS) within three days, including the hashtags ‘#NuclearSafetyGrantTax #OneMillionSignatureCampaign #NationalNuclearAlliance,’ and will each nominate the next challenger to continue the SNS challenge.