BRAZIL: Industry Resisting Environmental Costs

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 20 1997 (IPS) - Brazilian businessmen are protesting over the costs of applying new environmen-friendly standards to their operations.

Manufacturers have mobilized themselves to change a parliamentary bill on the environmemnt and, in the state of Sao Paolo, industrialists and agribusiness are threatening action over proposed water tariffs.

The bill before the national Congress has been slowly pasasing through both houses of parilament since 1991. The lowers house approved it two years ago and the Senate gave its approval in July but, new amendments have required a new vote to be taken.

The bill provbides for increased penalties for industrial pollution which has disturbed businessmen. National alliances of industry, agriculture and transportation concluded a joint review of the legislation, citing ten points they wanted struck out and modifications made to 68 other proposals.

The new code seeks to puts into practice the environmental section of the national constitution, in effect since 1988.

“It only consolidates already existing legislation and establishes penalties,” said Luciano Pizzatto, the member of parlimaent who proposed the bill.

But it is these proposed penalties thast has frightened businessmen. Fines of up to millions of dollars could be imposed daily, and offenders also face up to one year in jail if they are found guilty of causing irreversible damage to the environment.

The situation is even more serious for the directors or owners, who would have to pay for any contamination produced by their business and could be ordered to clean it up, even before their culpability was established in court.

The law is particularly harsh on anyone breaking a ban on the entry into of Brazil of toxic waste and chemical, nuclear or biological weapons with penalties of up to ten years in prison and steep fines.

The National Industrial Federation, the representative body of the big manufacturerers, says the “excesses” of the law will harm economic development and the competitiveness of the sector.

The Federatioon claimed some provisions of the law were are unconstitutional, such as those requiring reparations or indemnification before proving guilt. The definition of crimes is “so broad that any automobile owner would be condemned” it said.

The industrialists have obtained unexpected support from a group block of evangelicalists as the anti-pollution law also prohibits excessive noise. Religious groups feel threatened, since celebrations at their churches tend to be noisy and provoke the complaints of their neighbors.

The ‘evangelical bench’ in the House of Representatives numbers more than 50 of the 513 members.

In the state of Sao Paolo, the most developed and populated of the country, the battle is overr water. The scarcity, now aggravated by the drought, led the government of that state propose a tariff on water consumption.

The tax is based on an experiment initiated in France two decades ago and it is foreshadowed by a Brazilian law that existed 60 years ago but was never applied. The idea is to apply it at last by means of a ruling to be approved in the state assembly – which could delay it for two years.

Owners of businesses that use a lot of water, like the sugar factories and alcohol distillation plants,. which account for 42 percent of the manufacturing activities of the whole state, are already showing their concern.

Such fears are unjustified, according to the Secretary of Water Resources, Hugo Rosa, because the project limits the tariff to a maximum of one percent of the income of each company and only in areas where there is a proven scarcity of water.

The defenders of the measure add that the benefit will be for all, and that the companies already pay the cost of not having available to them an adequate or sufficient water supply.