Chile’s environmental review reform passes first senate test

A bill to speed up environmental evaluations in Chile passed its first test in the senate after being unanimously approved by its environment and climate change committee. 

The bill will be put up for a vote on the senate floor next week, committee head Sergio Gahona said at the end of the session.

The government’s proposal, submitted in January, aims to streamline the review process by centralizing proceedings around environmental review agency SEA and incentivizing early citizen participation to avoid conflicts later on.

The text, among other aspects, would eliminate a ministerial committee that currently acts as an appeals body for approvals and rejections issued by SEA.

Senator Rafael Prohens said that he was against scrapping said committee, even though he voted in favor of the bill in general. 

“It has acted well, and in some cases made improvements to projects that other instances can’t do,” Prohens said, adding that he would be in favor of a restructuring instead. 

Prohens cited the case of the Punta Alcalde thermoelectric plant, which was originally rejected by SEA in 2012 but later revived by the committee with higher environmental requirements. 

Other senators also said the bill was likely to undergo some changes, including issues related to citizen participation.

The view of concessionaires

The head of local concessionaires association Copsa, Leonardo Daneri, said during the session that the bill is going in the right direction, and that it needs to be approved as soon as possible as the country is facing historic levels of concession investments. 

“We currently have concession projects worth US$7bn, which include airports, hospitals and highways,” he said. “It will take us six years to accomplish that. If we speed things up, it could take half that time.”

There are also ongoing concession tenders totaling US$6bn and a pipeline of future auctions worth US$12bn.

Grupo Costanera’s general manager, Diego Savino, spoke in favor of the bill but said that concession tenders should be held after environmental approval is obtained, and that the State should deal with the process instead of the concessionaires.

The government has expressed support for this idea and has already obtained a positive environmental resolution for the Zapallar reservoir concession (US$213mn), which is expected to be tendered later this year.