Brazil is entering a critical week for socio-environmental issues. Congress will debate President Lula da Silva’s vetoes of Bill 2159/21, which became Law 15190/25 and is known as the “Devastation Bill.” The first attempt to examine the presidential vetoes took place on 16 October 2025 but was suspended after the government pushed for more time to convince lawmakers about the damage caused if the law comes into force.

Now, exactly one week after the end of COP30, Congress has chosen November 27 to examine the president’s vetoes, raising a red flag since the context does not appear favourable to preventing the relaxation of procedures as important as environmental licensing. The Devastation Bill, as its name suggests, faces strong resistance from civil society organizations and environmental experts that believe it threatens the effectiveness of regulations protecting the environment and society.

Repórter Brasil has been monitoring the bill as it moves through Congress and has expressed concern about several points of the proposal, especially those raised by the Senate-Chamber Environmental Caucus^[1]1 and other civil society organizations that call for the vetoes to be fully upheld. The many potential setbacks included the following concerns:

• Disregard for the precautionary principle, which requires the adoption of measures to avoid serious or irreversible environmental damage whenever there is scientific uncertainty about an activity, and neglect towards risks, contradicting the urgent demands posed by the climate emergency. The Caucus points to the Special Environmental License (LAE, regulated by executive order 1308/2025) as an example. It created a “single-phase procedure that condenses all licensing stages into 12 months for high-impact developments. The design goes against good practices, puts pressure on government technicians, and shifts the licensing focus from prevention to political pressure”.
• Creation of the Special Environmental License (LAE). As mentioned above, the LAE was created by an executive order and simplifies licensing procedures. According to the Environmental Caucus, this is a dangerous shortcut. LAEs require Environmental Impact Studies but compress hearings, analyses and reviews into a single unrealistic deadline. In practice, it institutionalizes “licensing by political pressure” and clashes with the Constitution (Article 170, section 4, and Article 225).
• Undermining participation of traditional peoples and communities. Protection is still restricted. Bill 3834/2025 made partial progress by recognizing previous stages of demarcation/regularization of indigenous and quilombola territories. However, traditional peoples and communities are not even mentioned, and protection remains conditional on documents that the State itself will often not issue. Free, prior and informed consultation (ILO 169) cannot depend on this.
• Possibility of online public hearings – considered by the Caucus as a way to weaken control by society and exclude populations from participation spaces, especially those with difficulty to access the internet.
• Repeal of Article 6, section 2, of Law 7661/1988, National Coastal Management Plan, which provides that:

“Article 6. Licensing for land subdivision and reconsolidation, construction, installation, operation and expansion of activities, with changes to the natural characteristics of the Coastal Zone must observe, in addition to the provisions of this Law, other specific federal, state and municipal regulations, complying with Coastal Management Plans.

[…]

§ 2. For licensing, the competent authorities will request that those responsible for the activity prepare the environmental impact study and submit the respective Environmental Impact Report (RIMA) in accordance with the law.”

• Special environmental licensing – simplified license for “low” impact activities. The Caucus considers that “combining single-phase LAE (Special Environmental Licensing) and LAC (Environmental Licensing by Voluntary Commitment) with “sampling-based” analysis, and automatic renewal by self-declaration reduces the effectiveness of technical assessments to a formal standardized checklist, when it should guide the development and adjust environmental requirements. This increases the probability of errors, omissions and disasters.”
• Corrective Operating Licenses, Single Environmental Licenses, and Special Environmental Licenses valid for up to 10 years. The Caucus warns that extending special installation/operation licenses to up to 10 years “disconnects control from the real cycle of impacts and climate uncertainty”. The Caucus advocates “reducing validity, with mandatory intermediate reviews and risk-based reassessment triggers.”
• Another point of attention highlighted by the Caucus is automatic licence renewal, even for medium-sized projects, which, according to the proposal, would be granted by online self-declaration, even for small or medium-sized projects with low environmental damage potential. It would cancel licensing authorities’ role in verifying compliance with environmental requirements and would be based on trust in the “good faith” of the entrepreneur – opening loopholes for omissions and false declarations.
• Exclusion of financial institutions’ liability for environmental damage. According to the technical note prepared by the Caucus, both the vetoed bill and the version introduced by the government exclude “banks’ liability for environmental damage caused by activities they financed when they have requested the environmental license”. The document also underscores that it is the duty of financial institutions to “verify authorizations for vegetation suppression, concessions for the use of water resources, violation reports issued by federal and state environmental agencies, investigations by the Public Prosecution Service and civil or criminal judicial proceedings related to environmental matters, as well as overlap with conservation units, indigenous lands, quilombola territories, and undesignated public forests.”
• The need to protect Law 11428/2006 (the Atlantic Forest Act) by fully upholding the vetoes. According to the Environmental Caucus, this measure would prevent loopholes that might result in “irregular suppression of native vegetation in one of the country’s most threatened biomes. These vetoes also preserve conservation units and the integrity of fragile ecosystems, aligning Brazil with climate and biodiversity commitments.”
• Exemption of municipalities. The Caucus draws attention to the fact that ascribing the responsibility for licensing activities with local impact to municipalities is a mistake as it could lead to dismantling environmental laws, especially considering that municipalities would be more vulnerable to pressure from the agribusiness sector and other industries.
• Expansion of the power of states and municipalities. The Devastation Bill grants power to states and municipalities to create their own list of licensing exemptions, which could lead to a real environmental war resulting from the creation of weaker and more flexible laws to attract investors and projects with potential environmental impact.

The points above are only a few of the setbacks to be caused by the bill, which have been fought by environmentalists, experts and civil society organizations. They pose a real threat to the environmental licensing process, opening loopholes for immense and possibly irreversible impacts.

During COP30, Brazil reaffirmed its commitment to zero illegal deforestation by 2030 and overall deforestation by 2035. For Repórter Brasil, overturning the vetoes to the Devastation Bill would certainly contradict the goals established during the Conference. Therefore, Congress must uphold these vetoes. Otherwise, it risks overshadowing or even cancelling Brazil’s global leadership in environmental protection and the fight against climate change.

For all the reasons above, Repórter Brasil expects that not only the members of the Chamber/Senate Environmental Caucus and the Chamber/Senate Caucus for the Defence of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights will vote to UPHOLD the presidential vetoes, but also that all members of Congress will vote to avoid the GREATEST SETBACK in recent decades in terms of regulations that govern environmental licensing and protect the environment and nature.

Brasilia, November 25, 2025.

Repórter Brasil

Research and Social Impact Programme

Contact: Carlos Eduardo Chaves Silva, project advisor in the research and social impact programme – [email protected]

^[1] https://www.frenteambientalista.com/posicionamentotecnicolegislativo