Limitations and drawbacks of using Preliminary Environmental Reports (PERs) as an input to Environmental Licensing in São Paulo State: A case study on natural gas pipeline routing

This article discusses the limitations and implications to environmental management issues posed by the Environmental Licensing approach adopted in São Paulo State. In Brazil, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an essential precondition to the Environmental Licensing of activities and, in fact, it has been the most important and required tool for the licensing of projects. However, in 1994 the State of São Paulo implemented a simplified instrument called a “Preliminary Environmental Report” in order to make the environmental licensing process faster. Since then, the Preliminary Environmental Report (PER) has had the role of indicating whether an EIA needs to be elaborated upon or not. The positives and negatives regarding technical, institutional and legal aspects related to the use of Preliminary Environmental Reports (rather than EIA) are discussed using the case study of a high-pressure natural gas pipeline between the cities of São Carlos and Porto Ferreira in the State of São Paulo. The main conclusion is that the Environmental Licensing process in São Paulo should not use PERs as the sole input to decision making about proposed activities, since the PER approach does not guarantee that the proposed activity is environmentally suitable, does not address locational issues or comparison of alternatives, and risk assessment issues are not considered in the earliest stages of assessment.