Modifications of environmental licensing in Minas Gerais: advance or regression?

Abstract

Despite the importance of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Licensing (EL) as environmental management instruments, they had been criticized for lack of clarity about their benefits. In this context, the simplification and efficiency of these instruments are recurrently topics of interest. In Brazil, federal law proposals are under discussion and there have been initiatives of streamlining these instruments in various states. That is the case of the state of Minas Gerais, where changes in the legal norms that regulate EIA and EL were made between 2016 and 2018. In this paper those changes were analyzed, aiming to identify potential benefits and harms when trying to accomplish EIA and EL objectives. Modifications in legal norms were identified based on documental analysis of current and former legal norms that regulate EIA and EL in Minas Gerais, which were latter evaluated against EIA best practices presented in literature. It was identified that modifications occurred virtually in every phase of EL and EIA processes. Some of them represent important improvements (use of digital and online resources, inclusion of locational criteria in screening, modification of parameters to define dimension of activities and creation of a monitoring and inspection center), while others need to be observed more carefully (dismissal of the Operation License renew for some activities, reduction on the participation of COPAM in decision making, and significant increase of cases that are subject only of simplified environmental license). We hope that the discussion presented can contribute to the debate regarding LA modifications, so that proposed actions and law alterations are in line with EIA and EL objectives and environmental protection can be guaranteed.