Last Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies approved the temporary environmental licensing measure, strengthening the flexibility package that Lula’s government had tried to block from obtaining presidential approval. The final report, prepared by Representative Z. Vitor (PL-MG), maintains the representative structure sent by the executive branch, but reopens points of the General License Act and restores sections that Planalto vetoed, following the congressional movement that overturned, last week, 56 of the 63 presidential vetoes. The vote was held symbolically.
In the approved opinion, the rapporteur acknowledges that his analysis was guided by Parliament’s decision to appeal the rulings that Lula had excluded. He writes that the accepted amendments “seek to fill the gaps left by the partial veto of Bill No. 2159,” and states that he considered “the rejection of the veto to have been embodied in a session of the National Congress.”
The approval was marked by protests from grassroots parliamentarians, who claimed that the final text differed from what the executive had originally sent.
— Today, Brazilian families are suffering from social and environmental catastrophes made worse by Congress turning its back on science. This project in its current state is a continuation of PL da Devastação. They expanded the capabilities of the LAC and reduced community control,” said Tarcisio Motta (PSOL-RJ).
Despite the criticism, the government’s directives were in favor of approval, as the MP’s term will expire on Friday. Labor Party leader Lindbergh Farias (RJ) justified the vote:
-If this representative falls, we will suffer a severe setback, because progress has been made here. We voted yes, because it is the best way.
The plenary also agreed on the importance of the PSOL-Rede consortium and removed the section that created an expedited procedure for road works classified as strategic. This clause classifies the reconstruction and repaving of existing highways as strategic interventions considered relevant to national security, access to basic services, or integration between countries. Provided for reduced deadlines: allowed stabilization studies to be submitted within 90 days; Allowed any unissued licenses to be replaced with secondary data, after 30 days; A deadline of 90 days was set for completion of post-protocol analysis. With the ban, these businesses no longer enjoy priority processing and a shortened licensing procedure, eliminating one of the key areas of flexibility provided for in the original text.
Before the vote, Ze Vitor stressed that he had not changed the MP’s oath that deals with special environmental authorization (LAE), a method created by the government to speed up the analysis of strategic projects, while maintaining the traditional three stages of licensing and the requirements of an environmental impact study (EIA).
— LAE has his script exactly, and has nothing to complain about. We never wanted to resist. Now voting will be easy — said the rapporteur.
The rapporteur also expanded the scope of the LAC, by introducing an objective list of characteristics that allow its use by medium-sized companies – such as low contamination potential, pre-modified area, or no cumulative effect. LAC is a simplified procedure based on self-declaration by the entrepreneur.
Projects involving depopulation, permanent conservation areas, conservation units, indigenous lands, quilombola lands and other high-impact situations are automatically excluded from this method. Another axis that was reopened in relation to the presidential veto was specifically the expansion of the use of the Line of Actual Control, especially in the area of sanitation. The government has restricted this possibility and reinforced the need for environmental impact assessment in more cases. The approved version resumes a more flexible model: it recreates the list of exceptions and limits the impact study to “exceptional cases.” The excerpts that Lula objected to go back to the text
Despite efforts to show reconciliation with Planalto, the approved report reintegrates devices banned by the government to maintain environmental safeguards. among them:
- Reusing previous environmental studies: Lula’s central veto is due to the danger of outdated diagnoses. The approved text allows licensing bodies to use studies already prepared and “information derived from remote monitoring systems”;
- Exemption from a maintenance dredging license in waterways and natural navigation routes: Planalto objected to this because it considered that the device reduced control over actions with a cumulative effect. The text repeats the following rule: only dredging in ports and access channels requires a license;
- Exemption from new environmental manifestations: To make operational changes to already licensed broadcasting and communications systems.
These amendments reopen points that the government deemed necessary to ensure minimum national standards, protect vulnerable biomes, and make excessive self-declarations difficult.