When the so-called “fast track” of the Fiscal Pact was announced, the Government announced that within this battery of priority projects, two of them, linked to permits, were key.
One is the one led by Minister of Economy, Nicolás Grau, which is related to sectoral permits and the creation of a single window, the discussion of which is progressing somewhat faster than the second project.
The latter, in the Senate Environment Commission, comes to reform Law 19,300.
Hence it is presented as the “Environmental Law 2.0” and that after the recent ruling of the Antofagasta Environmental Court that annulled the resolution of the Committee of Ministers in the framework of the Dominga case, this initiative has therefore taken on an even greater sense of urgency.
Environmental permitting and Dominga project
For him Undersecretary of the Interior, Luis Cordero, that years ago it was lawyer for the company Andes Iron, owner of Dominga, He avoided referring to the ruling as such, but said that in terms of permits, “like this case we see today, there are many others.”
“Reduce assessment steps, ensure quality environmental assessment and reduce policy space for decision-making. Is this new? No,” said the minister, recalling that initiatives in this regard also arose in the government of former president Sebastián Piñera.
For Cordero, the important thing is to know if there is consensus to move forward on the matter.
Efficiency and environmental standards
In said Commission in the Upper House, the PPD senator, Ricardo Lagos Weber, He said that the discussion goes beyond bureaucracy, but he reiterated the commitment of the commission itself “don’t lower standards.”
“Here, what we need to have is legislation that closes the processes, for better or worse. This is not just bureaucracy, it is an issue of See how you combine sustainable development with the generation of capital, opportunities, work, etc. That is what we are doing in the Environment Commission (…) we all agree on that,” said the senator.
This sense of urgency and agreement that politics is vitiating some transversal discussions between parliamentarians was also pointed out by the president of the Economy Commission, the Senator Rojo Edwards.
For the parliamentarian, “Chile is not going to develop if important development projects that benefit and are loved by local communities are permanently destroyed. “The difficulties that exist with permits and judicial processes to invest in the country are too many.”
This morning, the Minister of the Environment, Maisa Rojas, was invited to speak at a seminar organized by Clapes UC, but according to the organization itself, the Secretary of State He would have excused himself at the last minute for “obvious reasons.”
