On February 8th of 2024, the State Environmental Council approved the Normative Deliberation No. 01/2024, which updates the guidelines and criteria to be followed by São Paulo municipalities regarding environmental licensing. This ruling results from a lengthy debate initiated in 2022 to review and update the Normative Deliberation No. 01/2018.

The new Deliberation aims to provide municipalities with greater clarity on the criteria for issuing permits, in order to strengthen their environmental management in a responsible and sustainable way, and to harmonize the norm with other existing provision in environmental legislation. Among the main points, the following stand out:

• the possibility of public consortia conducting environmental licensing and carrying out inspections, as already provided by the Federal Complementary Law No. 140/2011;
• mandatory technical staff formed by public servants to conduct environmental licensing in municipal agencies and public consortia;
• expansion of the list of business and activities subject to environmental licensing with the inclusion of about 40 new types, divided into non-industrial and industrial and by local impact, size, pollution potential and the nature of activities;
• definitions to clarify and delimit the objects and scope of the new Deliberation;
• establishment of a minimum structure that the municipality must have for environmental licensing, such as: (i) qualified environmental agency; (ii) Municipal Environmental Council, with the participation of public sector bodies and civil society entities, including environmentalists and representatives of traditional peoples and communities, if existing in the municipality; (iii) implemented system of environmental inspection and monitoring; and (iv) specific regulations with administrative procedure to be followed for protocol, instruction, processing of processes and issuance of licenses;
• in case the municipality does not have the minimum structure demanded by the norm, it may lose qualification for environmental licensing, which may be assumed by the state agency “CETESB”;
• in cases envisaged by the legislation, the bodies, boards and third parties intervening in the environmental process will be heard;
• regarding the definition of the licensing level that may be executed by the municipality, the conditions established in Annex III of the Deliberation must be observed;
• if ventures and/or local impact activities listed in the present resolution affects an area classified as contaminated or suspected of contamination, the continuation of the respective environmental licensing process will be subject to technical manifestation issued by CETESB.

The Federal Constitution assigns the common competence of the Union, the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities for environmental protection. In order to coordinate this joint action, the Federal Complementary Law No. 140/2011 established which environmental agency (municipal, state of federal) will be responsible for issuing the environmental licensing, since enterprises and activities must be authorized by a single agency.

The Deliberation 01/2024, by revising Deliberation 01/2018, provides guidance to harmonize public policies and administrative actions among public entities, preventing conflicts of attributions and ensuring municipal autonomy for licensing, provided that there is a structure in place. Furthermore, it grants greater legal security to the entrepreneurs during the environmental licensing processes.

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