Avanços e limitações da atribuição à ANA de competências para editar normas de referência para o setor de saneamento

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the advances introduced by the New Sanitation Legal Framework (NMLS) for regulating the sector by assigning new powers to the National Water and Sanitation Agency (ANA), as well the challenges for the success of its implementation. The hypotheses discussed are the following: ANA's new attributions – related to the publication of reference standards (RS) – represent improvements in the regulation of the sector, as they promote greater homogenization in the rules, and the implementation of RS may be limited by incipient technical skills and institutionality of subnational regulatory entities. Therefore, although the regulatory changes introduced by the NMLS contribute to a more homogeneous and stable regulatory environment, the institutional strengthening of subnational regulatory entities and their capacity building are critical to their success.