President Vicente Fox is expected next month to send Congress legislation aimed at strengthening the government’s environmental monitoring and enforcement powers, as he promised in the electoral campaign that carried him to office last year. The legal department of the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) is working with independent consultants to put the finishing touches on a package of proposals by the end of this month. While still being honed, the main components of the package are emerging. The most controversial is a proposed addition to the General Ecological Equilibrium and Environmental Protection Law (LGEEPA) of a requirement for mandatory site-by-site reporting of industrial toxic releases. Non-governmental organizations and environmental administrators in the three countries that signed the North American Free... [Log in to read more]