The Senate has been seeking in recent weeks to speed up the processing of controversial proposals of interest to the agribusiness bench and, for that, has circumvented the plenary of the House and the Committee on the Environment.
The process of the “boiadinha”, as it has been called by environmentalists and senators, takes place without the obstruction or even the complacency of President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG).
In a note, the parliamentarian stated that the distribution of projects follows the regiment.
The Minas Gerais senator had promised former Environment ministers, artists and environmentalists that the processing of these projects would not be trampled and that he would have “very active participation of the Agriculture and Environment committees”.
But in practice, what you see is something else. At least eight bills, with greater or lesser environmental impact, were approved by the Senate or are targets for articulation to advance in recent weeks, largely without a comprehensive analysis of their content.
These are matters that aim to change the Forest Code, make the use of pesticides more flexible, give amnesty to deforesters or reduce restrictions in conservation areas and conservation units.
The main movement took place on Wednesday (1st), when Pacheco proceeded precisely with one of the projects targeted by civil society protests, the so-called PL do Veneno. The proposal removes decision-making power from Ibama and Anvisa and makes a series of rules related to pesticides more flexible.
The Senate president sent the bill only to the CRA (Commission on Agriculture and Agrarian Reform), dominated by ruralists. He ignored, for example, the analysis by the CMA (Commission on the Environment) and the CAS (Commission on Social Affairs), which deals with matters related to health.
In response, Senator Eliziane Gama (Cidadania-MA) submitted a request for the text to also be forwarded to the CMA — there has been no decision yet.
This is not the only case of “dribbling” in the Environment Commission. At least four in the last month were ruled by the CRA and the CAE (Commission on Economic Affairs), most of them in a terminative nature.
This means that, if they advance in these commissions and there is no application, they will be considered approved and will go straight to the Chamber of Deputies or even to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) – whose government is the target of international criticism because of its policy. environmental.
The decision as to whether a project has a terminative character is up to the president of the Senate.
Many of these proposals have not yet been approved because of attempts to obstruct the opposition.
“Their view is that the government will end, so those groups hanging on to it, in those more radical concepts, such as anti-environmentalists, are trying to pass the proposals under the parliament, believing that parliamentarians are already focused on the elections”, said the minority leader, Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN).
The PT senator also adds that these anti-environment agendas placed in the shadows on the voting agenda serve as a “bait” to test resistance against even more bombastic issues, such as land regularization and new environmental licensing.
“It’s literally passing the tractor, since we are dealing with agricultural issues. It’s passing the herd”, he adds, referring to the phrase of former minister Ricardo Salles.
In addition to opposition parliamentarians, the Senate’s actions drew the attention of representatives of civil society.
“We have the so-called ‘Destruction Package’: the law that authorizes mining on indigenous lands, the general licensing law, the land grabbing law. But in the meantime, these ‘boiadinhas’ are passing by. are very bad”, says Suely Araújo, former president of Ibama and head of the Climate Observatory.
Included in this ‘boiadinha’, there was an attempt to vote, in a final character and excluding the CMA, two proposals that change the Forest Code.
Currently, the code exempts producers who adhere to the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) from compensation for deforestation until 2008 to regularize the property. One of these projects, based on the CRA on a terminative basis, wants to make the reference date 2012, in practice, increasing the amnesty for another four years.
Many of these projects had been stalled for a few years, gaining new life only in the last few weeks and proceeding at an accelerated pace.
“The Agriculture Committee’s voting agendas are coming out just 12 hours before the meeting takes place and with terminative projects on the agenda […] It is great nonsense. He [Pacheco] promised to stop the herd, the destruction package, but it is silently making it through”, says Luiza Lima, public policy spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil.
Another project that changes the forest code is one that facilitates the construction of water reservoirs in APPs (Permanent Preservation Areas).
This bill was presented to the Senate in early 2019 and had been stalled since the second half of that year until, on March 8 of this year, Pacheco met a request and defined that it would go through the Environment Commission and then go to that of Agriculture, in a final form.
A week later, however, without any application being registered, the president of the Senate rectified his own order and excluded the CMA from the process, passing directly to the CRA, in a terminative character. The bill is on the agenda of the committee meeting next Thursday (9).
All this movement takes place less than three months after Pacheco received a letter from Caetano Veloso, during Ato Pela Terra, against the so-called “destruction package”.
NGOs such as Conectas, Greenpeace, ISA (Instituto Sócio Ambiental), Observatório do Clima and WWF sent a letter to the President of the Senate, last Wednesday (1st), asking him to change the course of these projects, for them to go through the Environment Committee.
“If, in fact, the projects do not proceed with the due cadence, through consideration of the environment commission and other pertinent ones, in addition to the Plenary, there is no doubt that we would be facing an evident breach of what was promised to the whole of society. very strange, as we have never seen the current president of the Senate break agreements”, protests Mauricio Guetta, ISA’s legal advisor.
THE Sheet contacted the president of the CRA, Acir Gurgacz (PDT-RO), and the vice president of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front for the Senate, Zequinha Marinho (PL-PA), but none of them responded to questions.
Pacheco stated in a note that the distribution of the projects followed the terms of the Senate’s regiment, sending them to the most relevant thematic committees, some of which were final.
The president of the House added that the initial order does not necessarily mean that a single commission will have the last word. This is because “requests requesting the hearing of other commissions can be voted on or, as a last resort, an appeal can be presented by one tenth of the senators to the Plenary in relation to projects that have been finalized in the commissions.”
The president of the CMA, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), said that he will require that the proposals go through his commission, including the PL do Veneno. “It is up to the CMA to analyze issues of protection and conservation of the environment, pollution control, defense of the soil and natural resources, among others,” he said.
The ‘boy’ in the Senate
Poison PL
- Situation: Directed last Wednesday (1st) by Pacheco to the Agriculture Committee, without going through the Environment and without terminative character. Applications were presented by the opposition to change its procedure.
- Impact: It allows registration of new pesticides and reduces the power of Ibama and Anvisa on the subject.
Installment of IBAMA debts
- Situation: It is in the final phase of the Economic Affairs Committee, which tried to put it to a vote last Tuesday (31), but the opposition managed to stop it. It has already passed the CRA, but has not even passed the CMA.
- Impact: Creates another mechanism for renegotiating debts with IBAMA.
sanitary self-control
- Situation: In a final way, it was placed on the agenda of the Agriculture Committee last Thursday (2), but it was not taken to a vote after moving the opposition, which presented a request for a public hearing. It didn’t go through the CMA.
- Impact: Authorizes the hiring of private companies to carry out the sanitary inspection of agricultural activity, exempting the State from this responsibility and benefiting large producers who can afford the increase in costs.
Amnesty for deforestation
- Situation: It was on the agenda of the 19th of the Agriculture Commission, in a final way, but, after pressure from the opposition, it was not taken to a vote. It did not go through the Environment Committee.
- Impact: Amends the Forest Code and changes the reference date for regularization and payment of compensation for deforestation. In practice, it expands by four years the properties that can be regularized due to illegal deforestation.
Construction of water reservoirs in APPs
- Situation: It is in the CRA in a final form and has not passed through the CMA. Matter is on the agenda for a possible vote on Thursday (9).
- Impact: Amends the Forest Code to facilitate the intervention and deforestation of Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) aimed at building water reservoirs.
Transmission lines in ITs
- Situation: In less than two months, it was approved in the Infrastructure Committee (5.abr) and in the Plenary of the Senate (3.mai), in the latter with only three votes against. Now it’s in the Chamber of Deputies.
- Impact: Although it provides for consultation with affected communities, the law facilitates the construction of electricity transmission lines within Indigenous Lands, giving the presidency the power to decide, by decree, the lines that are of interest to the Union.
Exemption for forestry
- Situation: After two years in the Senate, in less than two months it passed the CMA (May 11) and was approved in the Plenary (May 17). Now, she is in the Chamber of Deputies.
- Impact: Makes the activity no longer pay the fee for polluting action to Ibama, a sum used, for example, for inspection actions
Colonist Road
- Situation: Spurred on by Senator Alvaro Dias (Pode-PR), it was ready for a vote in the Environment Committee, which did not happen after the opponent Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES) withdrew his report (May 5) and Senator Eliziane Gama presented public hearing request (May 23).
- Impact: allows the construction of Estrada do Colono, which cuts the Iguaçu Park in half, and also authorizes the construction of “park roads” in all of Brazil’s more than 2,300 conservation units
