Since 2012, the Superintendence of the Environment (SMA) has worked steadily in guaranteeing compliance with environmental regulations, through the active exercise of their powers: control, compliance assistance, sanctioning procedures, among others.
An important milestone on this path is the beginning of the number 3,000 sanction procedure, a number that, far from being just a figure, symbolizes the diversity and complexity of the cases addressed. Since 2023, the SMA has adopted a strategy focused on strengthening its sanctioning capacity, which has resulted in an increase in the number of procedures initiated. Thus, from January 2023 to date, 886 sanctioning procedures have been opened, which represents 30% of the total registered in the 13 years of existence of the institution.
From these procedures, at least three aspects stand out. First, the focus in complex cases, especially on projects with environmental qualification resolutions or elusion to the environmental evaluation system, reaching 177 cases. Secondly, breaches to recent standards, as is the case with green taxes and, finally, to improve the opportunity for the exercise of the sanctioning power, which has been gradually improved, reducing the times between the control, formulation of charges and termination of term, especially in areas such as aggregates and noise associated with constructive tasks.
However, the opening of procedures cannot be considered a success without the corresponding attention to the compliance programs, and at the end of cases. Since January 2023, the SMA has resolved the approval or rejection in 481 cases, which corresponds to 32% of the total pronouncements on PDC in the history of the SMA.
On the other hand, in terms of cases, the SMA has implemented a strategic approach, which has allowed to substantially increase these, reaching from January 2023 to date a total of 602 (39% of what is done by the SM in its history), composed of 385 sanctioning resolutions in which the sanction or acquittal of the charges formulated, and 217 resolutions of satisfactory execution of the satisfactory execution of compliance programs, addressing both long data and recent start cases.
This effort begins to reflect an improvement in the average response times of the authority, which is essential to guarantee due process and citizen expectations in the environmental institutional response, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of the environmental regulatory system. An institution that exercises its functions efficiently and effectively is essential for the fulfillment of its purposes that, in this case, is none other than protecting the environment and health of people, through ensuring environmental fulfillment.
Column published in Induente n ° 193 (March-April 2025), page 71.
