Green activists have warned that changes made by Brazil’s president to a bill that would allow the government to push through energy and infrastructure projects are not strong enough to fully protect its environment, forests and local communities.
On the last day for him to take a decision on what environmental campaigners have dubbed the ‘devastation bill’, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed 63 of the text’s nearly 400 provisions, while giving a green light to the rest. Approved by Congress on July 17, the bill proposes streamlining environmental licensing in the country.
In an official statement, the government said Lula’s vetoes would ensure “environmental protection and legal certainty”, including for investors.
Marina Silva, Brazil’s minister of environment and climate change, described the outcome as “the result of a major effort to achieve greater efficiency without sacrificing quality in the licensing process”.
Ana Carolina Crisostomo, a conservation specialist with WWF-Brazil, said the vetoes “were a response to society’s outcry, which mobilised broadly against the text of the bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.”
“Erosion” of environmental oversight
Environmentalists welcomed Lula’s veto of provisions in the bill that would have restricted consultation on projects with agencies responsible for protecting Indigenous and traditional communities, as well as the removal of the special protection regime for the Atlantic Forest.
However two provisions that weakened the process were approved with alterations: a system to allow some projects to issue their own licences, called Environmental License by Adhesion and Commitment (LAC), and a Special Environmental License (LAE) to fast track “strategic projects.”
“While some blatantly unacceptable provisions got vetoed, others that were just as bad advanced, putting the government’s interests ahead of the environment,” Lucas Kannoa, head of legal affairs at the Arayara International Institute, told Climate Home News. “The main impact is a significant erosion of oversight and control procedures.”
The institute has mapped at least 2,600 fossil fuel projects that could gain accelerated approval under the new LAE.
“For the first time, environmental licensing will be conducted under a purely political logic,” Arayara said in a statement. It called the partial rubber-stamping of the LAE a “victory of the lobbying efforts of national and foreign oil and large mining companies.”
What changes with the vetoes
Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian think-tank, said the presidential vetoes did “rectify some of the worst horrors of the bill” amid a difficult political landscape, with strong pressure from the country’s agribusiness and energy lobbies.
In the original text of the bill approved by Congress, the LAC self-licensing process would have exempted low and medium-impact projects from having to win approval from environmental agencies, provided the companies completed an online declaration of compliance with the rules.
Lula’s veto has restricted this option to low-impact projects only, which observers interpret as road paving, infrastructure upkeep and hydroelectric plants, among other examples. “That does some damage control,” Mauricio Angelo, executive director of the Mining Observatory, told Climate Home News.
A different regime called the LAE, which applies for projects considered “strategic” by a political council, came into effect immediately via executive order. Projects under this scheme could access a simplified and expedited licensing, which does not require climate change or other risks to be taken into account.
“Anything can be deemed strategic for the government: mining operations, hydroelectric plants, paving new roads in the Amazon – their interest will bypass any social or environmental concerns,” warned Angelo of the Climate Observatory.
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Other changes made by Lula were received more positively by activists, including upholding the need to consult with bodies that protect the rights of Indigenous and traditional peoples, even in cases where communities affected still do not have full legal recognition of their territories.
In a statement to the press, the Amazon Environmental Research Institute said the vetoes “represent a crucial advancement for the integrity of Brazilian environmental legislation.”
However, Mauricio Angelo of the Mining Observatory said other provisions could undermine this – especially expedited licenses for strategic projects under the LAC. “It’s pretty clear that communities’ right to free, prior and informed consultation will be rolled over – and they will face more pressure and conflicts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Claudio Angelo of the Climate Observatory said projects that could be considered “low impact” under the self-license rules include roads, mining, agriculture and logging – some of the main drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. That hinders Brazil’s plans to reach zero deforestation by 2030, a key goal in the country’s climate action plan, observers said.
Lula’s vetoes, as well as his Executive Order, must still be ratified by Congress. Kannoa noted that there could be a prior agreement between the Lula and Congress, potentially allowing these measures to be quickly accepted in order to expedite overall progress on the bill.
Environmentalists are concerned that Brazil is tarnishing its reputation ahead of the COP30 climate summit it will host in November with recent moves such as the environmental licensing bill and auctioning of oil and gas exploration blocks.
“It is a tragedy that in the same year that Brazil is hosting COP30, Congress decides to roll back environmental norms and the president does too little to veto,” Kannoa said.
Claudio Angelo said Brazil had already damaged its reputation on the global stage ahead of the COP30 climate summit due to growing complaints about insufficient and expensive accommodation in the Amazon city of Belem where the UN talks are due to be held.
He added that Lula’s vetoes on the environmental licensing bill and the resulting process for approving projects are “so confusing that we can barely tell if it’s good or bad news”.
