Brazilian Congress Passes "Fuck It" Bill Massively Cutting Environmental Law; Lula Has 2 Weeks To Veto Or Sign
Brazilian lawmakers have passed a bill that drastically weakens the country’s environmental safeguards and is seen by many activists as the most significant setback for the country’s environmental legislation in the past 40 years. The new law – widely referred to as the “devastation bill” and already approved by the senate in May – passed in congress in the early hours of Thursday by 267 votes to 116, despite opposition from more than 350 organisations and social movements.
It now goes to the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has 15 working days to either approve or veto it. Even if he vetoes the legislation, there is a strong chance that the predominantly conservative congress will overturn that, triggering a likely battle in the supreme court, as legal experts argue that the new law is unconstitutional.
“Either way, its approval is a tragedy,” said Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory civil society group, arguing that the legislation would, among other serious consequences, drive large-scale deforestation and heighten the risk of human-caused climate disasters. “There’s no precedent for how damaging this law is,” she said, describing it, as have several other environmental organisations, as “the greatest setback to Brazil’s environmental legislation” since the 1980s, when licensing first became a legal requirement in the country.
One of the main points of criticism of the law is that it allows projects classified as having “medium” polluting potential to obtain an environmental licence through a self-declared online form – without prior impact studies or regulatory review. Previously, this fast-track process was limited to low-risk activities. According to Araújo, this will affect about 90% of licensing procedures in Brazil, including those for mining companies and the vast majority of agricultural activities. “We’re seeing the implosion of Brazil’s environmental licensing system, that is going to become full self-licensing, where a company just clicks a button and the permit gets printed,” said Araújo, who served as president of Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama, from 2016 to 2018.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/17/brazil-passes-devastation-bill-that-drastically-weakens-environmental-law