Executive Yuan Budget Flouts Statutory Logging Compensation: Legislative Yuan Votes to Return Central Budget Proposal

On September 20, 2024, the opening day of the Legislative Yuan's fall session, nonpartisan legislator Kao Chin Su-mei joined forces with the KMT and TPP opposition caucuses to challenge the Executive Yuan's FY2025 Central Government General Budget proposal. Opposition lawmakers fiercely rebuked Premier Cho Jung-tai's cabinet for unlawfully refusing to fund statutory compensation of NT$60,000 per hectare under the recently enacted Logging Ban Compensation for Indigenous Lands Act (allocating only NT$40,000). By a majority vote of 59 in favor and 46 opposed, the legislature formally returned the entire budget proposal to the Procedure Committee, triggering an extraordinary budgetary standoff.