Senate President Davy Alclumbre called a session Thursday morning to vote on President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s veto of the bill relaxing environmental licensing rules. The analysis takes place during a moment of tension between Alcolombre and the federal government following the appointment of Jorge Mesías to the Supreme Federal Court (STF). Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) was Alcolombre’s favorite candidate for the seat on the court.
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Despite attempts, no agreement was reached between the government and the Parliamentary Agricultural Front. Planalto must publicly embrace the rhetoric in order to fully preserve Lula’s veto. The strategy is that Thursday’s vote will take place item by item on the ballot.
According to the government, the veto sought to correct constitutional violations and avoid environmental setbacks, in addition to ensuring legal security. Planalto announced the sending of a bill to fill the loopholes left by the vetoes and the temporary measure (MP) that defines the labor law – allowing more flexibility in actions considered priorities, but without providing for the analysis in a single stage, as expected in the original text.
Advocates of the original flexibility proposal, approved by Congress in July, claim it would speed up inspections without harming the environment. Environmental entities point out that the new rules have the potential to exacerbate environmental degradation.
A session to vote on the veto was scheduled for October, but it was cancelled. Last month, Planalto gave a signal to the President of the Senate to authorize drilling in the Foz do Amazonas Basin, which was approved by Obama. Oil exploration in the equatorial margin is defended by Columbrians.
In October, right-wing and central-wing leaders indicated that Congress would overturn costly vetoes of environmentalists and enact a law that would simplify permitting through self-declaration for projects with moderate pollution potential, such as dams, for example.
Currently, discussions about environmental licensing are taking place on different fronts in the legislature. There is a path that intends, based on more than 800 amendments, to systematize the temporary measure approved by Lula that created the model of the special environmental license, championed by Alcolombre, and which would add to the text the points to which the president objected. The other way, which the opposition considers more efficient, is precisely to abolish the veto, because this would immediately end the process.
To Globo, the head of the Council’s Environmental Protection Front, Nelto Tatu, said on Tuesday that the group would work against the cancellation of all Lula’s objections.
– There is an attempt by the opposition to cancel all vetoes. We are running a campaign in the streets and online against this.