Devastation Bill: 10 points to understand the bill of law threatening the climate and environment in the year of COP30
The General Environmental Licensing Bill proposal eases regulations, reduces public participation and could exacerbate climate and socioenvironmental crises
Foto: Alan Assis/Sema
In one of the most decisive years for the global climate agenda, with COP30 scheduled to take place in Brazil, the Federal Senate is discussing bill of law 2.159/2021, which eases environmental licensing and could represent the biggest environmental legislative setback in four decades and a serious threat to human rights. The proposal will be debated on Tuesday (20) by the Environment Committee – where it has already been approved – and the Agricultural Committee, with voting scheduled for Wednesday (21), in both the CRA (Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Committee) and the Plenary.
The proposal stems from bill of law 3729/2004, which was considered for years in the Chamber of Deputies and was approved in May 2021 by a vote of 300 to 122. The text approved by the deputies established, among other measures, self-declaratory environmental licensing, exempting prior verification by regulatory bodies. After approval, the bill moved to the Senate, where it was renumbered as bill 2.159/2021 and was passed to the thematic committees of the House.
According to an analysis by Observatório do Clima, by allowing the definition of activities subject to environmental licensing to take place without national coordination and outside the scope of independent collegiate bodies, the bill makes way for environmental degradation, weakens regulators, and undermines legal certainty by permitting varying interpretations across different states and municipalities.
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The bill also weakens collegiate decision-making bodies, such as environmental councils, by transferring strategic responsibilities – such as the requirement for environmental impact studies – to local licensing agencies that are subject to political pressure. This fosters arbitrary decisions and weakens social controls. Furthermore, it opens the possibility for automatic license renewals and drastically reduces inspections, with site visits becoming the exception and no longer the rule. According to experts from Observatório do Clima, environmental licensing is not an obstacle to development but rather an essential tool for prevention and for safeguarding life.
By easing requirements for impact studies, environmental conditions and monitoring, the bill opens the way for disasters and health risks, such as soil, water and air contamination, displacement of communities and the destruction of ways of life and cultural wisdom. Furthermore, completely ignoring the climate crisis, the text fails to even mention the word ‘climate’. The bill, filled with unconstitutional elements, creates legal uncertainty and is likely to increase litigation, overloading environmental technicians and leading to backlogs in licensing processes.
See below for the main red flags raised by civil society organizations:
The 10 principal setbacks of the bill:
- Exemption from licensing for several economic activities
The bill exempts activities such as small-scale agriculture, livestock and forestry from licensing, as well as water and sewage treatment. Small dams for irrigation are also exempt and there are loopholes allowing self-declaration for high-risk ventures, like those that caused the disasters at Mariana and Brumadinho. - Environmental fiscal war between states and municipalities
States and municipalities will be able to define their own regulations, including exempting licensing for impactful activities. This could create legal uncertainty and lead to an “environmental race to the bottom”, where regions relax their rules to attract investment. - Self-declared licensing as the norm
Licensing by Adhesion and Commitment (LAC) will now be the rule, issued automatically based on the companies’ own declarations, without prior verification by environmental agencies, increasing the risk of further environmental disasters. - Restriction of public participation
With simpler automatic licensing, affected communities and civil society organizations will have less space to give their opinions or contest ventures that impact on their territories and ways of life. - Threat to biomes and traditional communities
The text excludes the need to assess the impact on Indigenous communities, quilombolas and areas that are in the process of demarcation or titling, and also disregards the effect on public health and eco-systems. - Reduction of state control
Bodies like ICMBio, Funai, Iphan, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Health lose their capacity to participate in the licensing process, weakening environmental, cultural and social licensing. - No socioenvironmental accountability for banks
Financial institutions are now exempt from accountability for environmental damage caused by the projects they fund. Their only obligation is to provide an environmental licensing certificate. - Amnesty and undocumented ventures
Companies that currently operate without a valid license will not be held responsible. To come into compliance, they will simply need to adhere to corrective licensing process, with no penalties for past infractions. - Climate not mentioned
Experts stress that bill 2.159/2021 completely disregards the climate crisis: the word “climate” is not even mentioned in the text. In the year of COP30, to be hosted by Brazil, this omission further highlights the disconnect between the country’s official discourse as an environmental leader and legislative practice.
- Water resources at risk
Another serious risk is authorization for ventures to receive licenses without water use permits which could exacerbate the dispute for resources and compromise water security in a number of reasons.
