By WWF communications office
Environmentalists denounce in a statement the breach of agreement and a series of setbacks in the text of the rapporteur, Kim Kataguiri (DEM-SP).
Environmental organizations published a statement on Monday (12) repudiating the environmental licensing bill presented last week by Congressman Kim Kataguiri (DEM-SP), which could be voted on in the Chamber's plenary session this week. According to the organizations, the final version of the text results from a breach of agreement and introduces a series of setbacks that make licensing "the exception, not the rule". This compromises the population and the legal security of the works themselves.
“Balance and consensus were set aside to make way for backroom deals,” the statement says. The manifesto recalls that Kim had committed to accepting in the text the consensus resulting from ten public hearings held to debate the issue. This did not happen. In 2017, the Speaker of the House, Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ), had publicly committed to not bringing the licensing to a vote in the plenary until there was consensus on the text.
Among the main setbacks in Kim's text are: the exclusion of indirect impacts of works in licensing, the application of "self-licensing" as a general rule, including for works of significant impact, such as the duplication and paving of highways in the Amazon, the permission for each state and municipality to exempt activities from licensing as they see fit, and exemptions from licensing for impactful activities, such as those related to the improvement and modernization of transport infrastructure.
Excluding indirect impacts would mean that hydroelectric dams and highways, for example, would no longer need to consider in their impact studies the deforestation they cause, or the violence, or the pressure on the health and sanitation systems of municipalities – exempting the developer from taking steps to prevent or compensate for these problems. Instituting self-licensing (in the form of "license by adhesion and commitment") for any project that does not cause significant impact increases the risk of disasters like those in Mariana and Brumadinho, especially considering that each state and each municipality can define for themselves what constitutes "significant impact." This also multiplies opportunities for corruption, since governors and mayors will be pressured by various lobbies seeking looser criteria, potentially generating a race for environmental deregulation to attract investment.
Finally, the bill's festival of exemptions will allow for the paving of highways throughout the country, including in the Amazon, through self-declaration licensing. At a time when the government's environmental policies are causing deforestation rates to explode, dragging the country's credibility through the mud and jeopardizing the very recovery of the economy, Kim Kataguiri's bill is adding fuel to the fire.
“If this text is not immediately stopped and modified, the Chamber of Deputies and its president, Rodrigo Maia, will be associating themselves with the Jair Bolsonaro government in the devastation of Brazil,” said Maurício Guetta, a lawyer for the Socio-Environmental Institute.
Representatives of the scientific community also expressed their opposition to Kim's bill on Monday. The Science and Society Coalition, composed of 60 scientists, published a statement expressing concern about the text. According to the statement, the bill "maintains points that, if approved, will fundamentally compromise the conservation of a healthy environment for the present and future Brazilian population."