Author(s)

MARIA TERESA BROSETA PALANCA

Abstract

All instruments for environmental administrative supervision are aimed to control those facilities and activities likely to cause discomfort, alter environmental health conditions, or cause risk or harm to individuals or the environment.

The rules adopted for this purpose determine the start-up and performance of certain facilities to secure an authorisation of an environmental nature, which will be processed in a coordinated manner when the procedure involves more than one administrative authority with competence in such matters. Also, the integration of the processes of the two main systems of administrative intervention to prevent and reduce pollution at sources should be coordinated; such systems are the Integrated Environmental Authorisation and Environmental Impact Assessment.

Depending on the higher or lower capacity of the contaminant level to be managed, the control of the installation is adjusted in a way that the facilities, which host potentially harmful concentrations, have a more complex procedure of control under the oversight of regional administration; meanwhile, those of lower degree of potential impact on the environment are controlled by local councils, regardless of their resources.

New measures to reduce the terms and costs in activities implementation are included in recent regulation to launch productive activities and job creation, with new legal requirements including the Environmental Liability Statements and Environmental Communication. These tools have been created to reduce bureaucracy, and have caused local councils to change their ordinances to face this new challenge, although useful results have not yet been demonstrated.

Keywords

environmental impact assessment, environmental permits, industrial emissions, integrated environmental authorisation