THE NEW BIDDING LAW OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PREVENT SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

The briefing examines the 2021 New Bidding Law in Brazil, highlighting the potential for preliminary technical studies to serve as a new planning stage. CPI/PUC-Rio proposes integrating a pre-feasibility analysis—consisting of structuring questions and socio-environmental complexity assessments—to prevent low-quality or infeasible projects from proceeding. While the law improves transparency through a single official website and expands the oversight role of legal advisory bodies and courts of accounts, the authors criticize the reduction in mandatory social participation and the potential for delays in implementing environmental licensing priorities.

• The New Bidding Law introduces detailed requirements for preliminary technical studies, which CPI/PUC-Rio argues should be treated as a new planning stage to improve project selection and prioritization.
• CPI/PUC-Rio proposes a pre-feasibility analysis involving 10 structuring questions and a socio-environmental complexity assessment to be conducted by independent commissions before projects move to the EVTEA and environmental licensing stages.
• The new law expands the oversight of the preparatory phase by requiring assessments from legal advisory bodies, such as the federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU), and establishing courts of accounts as entities for risk management and preventive control.
• While the law mandates a single official website for bidding documents to increase transparency, it reduces social participation by only encouraging, rather than requiring, public hearings and consultations.
• The law allows for unilateral contract termination if environmental licenses cause substantial changes to preliminary engineering studies or if obtaining a license becomes impossible, placing the obligation to obtain the license on the contracted party.
• The law prioritizes the environmental licensing of construction works, but this may only be applied two years after entry into force, during which time the previous bidding law remains an option for the Administration.

APA

COZENDEY, G., & CHIAVARI, J. (2021). THE NEW BIDDING LAW OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PREVENT SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NT-The-New-Bidding-Law.pdf

Chicago

COZENDEY, GABRIEL, and JOANA CHIAVARI. THE NEW BIDDING LAW OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PREVENT SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS. Climate Policy Initiative, 2021. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NT-The-New-Bidding-Law.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=COZENDEY |first1=GABRIEL |last2=CHIAVARI |first2=JOANA |title=THE NEW BIDDING LAW OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PREVENT SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=May 2021 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NT-The-New-Bidding-Law.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{cozendey2021new, author = {COZENDEY, GABRIEL and CHIAVARI, JOANA}, title = {{THE NEW BIDDING LAW OFFERS OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS AND PREVENT SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NT-The-New-Bidding-Law.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }