Mexico
News & Developments
On May 30, 2000, Mexico published its new regulation on environmental impact assessment (EIA). The new regulation revokes the existing 1988 regulation in its entirety and will be effective as of June 30, 2000. The new regulation includes a few major innovations: (1) it fleshes out the list of 28 activities in the 1996 reforms to the General Ecology Law (LGEEPA) which require a company to obtain a prior federal EIA authorization; (2) it creates two types of EIA, regional and specific; and (3) it gives the public a greater role in the process.
[For a more complete discussion of the new regulation, see the revised Mexico report in the coming months.]
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In April, SEMARNAP announced that it hoped to have at least one, possibly two, hazardous waste disposal facilities built by the end of the current president's six-year term (ending Fall 2000).
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On June 7, 2000, the National Institute of Ecology (INE) reported that 51% of Mexican cities still do not properly dispose of municipal waste, opting to dispose of it in open pits and rivers. Nonetheless, the main federal agency (SEMARNAP) reports to be taking measures to combat the problem.
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June 7, 2000 - The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), after pressure from Greenpeace, agreed to carry out an independent audit of the nuclear power plant in Laguna Verde, Veracruz. The plant produces up to 6% of the nation's electricity.
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The U.N. Environmental Programme (Spanish acronym PNUMA) on June 2, 2000, presented a report on environmental perspectives in the year 2000. The three main areas of interest for the region were (1) depletion and destruction of forest resources, (2) climate change, and (3) problems associated with urban and industrial areas.
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As of late May 2000, many industries in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area have still not received a rating (calcomanía cero) that would denote them as low-emission facilities. This status was intended to remove them from a "black list" of some 600 companies that are required to reduce production by 30% in case of an "environmental contingency." In an article May 24, 2000 in the Excelsior, the president of the National Council of Environmentalist Industries reported that many industries had invested millions of dollars in clean technologies in order to be removed from the list. Nonetheless, politics, bureaucracy, and upcoming elections have held up the removal of these companies from that list.
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In May, Mexico, along with 60 other countries, signed the Biosecurity Protocol within the framework of the Convention on Biodiversity. The Protocol regulates transboundary movement of genetically modified organisms.
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