Bolsonaro sanctions with vetoes law that authorizes private companies to explore nuclear ores

President Jair Bolsonaro signed this Friday (29), with vetoes, a bill that allows greater participation of the private sector in the nuclear ores segment and changes rules associated with the state-owned Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB).

The new law authorizes the action of the private initiative in the research and mining of nuclear ores, but maintains the monopoly of the activity with INB, as provided for in the Constitution.

The text also allows INB to commercialize services and products with national and foreign entities, public or private, in the country or abroad and provides for the role that INB will play in the technical and economic feasibility studies for the definition of the way to use the nuclear mineral resources.

The bill stems from Provisional Measure No. 1,133, which was edited with the aim of boosting the activity of extracting nuclear ores in Brazil, in order to encourage the attraction of private investments and provide greater legal certainty to these activities.

The president vetoed the parts of the proposal approved in Congress that conditioned the export of nuclear ores by INB to the approval of the Minister of Mines and Energy and that changed the structure of the National Mining Agency (ANM) to create commission positions.

In the case of the first veto, the general secretariat of the presidency stated, in a note, that “the measure was contrary to the public interest, as it conditioned material export acts to the approval of the Minister of Mines and Energy and of the National Congress, which could hinder the exercise and expansion of the activity of exploration of nuclear ores in Brazil”.

In the case of the ANM, it alleged that the creation of commissioned positions would incur in vice and unconstitutionality, in addition to going against the public interest.