Dilma's veto reopens debate in the Brazilian Congress on Environmental Law

05/26/2012 - 07h57

Without transparency in content and on the grounds of seeking a middle ground between farmers and environmentalists, President Dilma Rousseff announced that she will veto 12 of the 84 articles of the Forest Code passed by the House of Representatives.

But the announcement, which thwarted the campaign for a full veto captained by environmentalists, does not end the discussion. The government will now send to Congress a provisional measure with 32 amendments in the law, which will reopen the discussions.

While making public the number of vetoes, the government only said what two of them will be. The others will be revealed only with the publication in the "Official Gazette" on Monday. Yesterday, four ministers were scheduled to talk only about the "spirit" of the measures.

And the spirit is to restore the text that had been approved in the Senate and ended up being modified by the House, considered the highest common denominator between the productive sector in Parliament and sustainability.

Of the 32 amendments, 14 retrieve the text of the senators, 5 correspond to directives and 13 are adjustments or adaptations of content, according to the ministers, without giving details.

Analyzing the "spirit" of the vetoes and changes, the president of the CNA (National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil), Senator Katia Abreu (PSD-TO), said Dilma used the " green and yellow pen " to mediate between ruralists and environmentalists.

"The green and yellow pen worked nicely. We accept this decision [the vetoes], we will let things happen. Things improved for the small producers, as the CNA wanted," she said.

"Even with the version given, the amnesty and the reduction of forest protection are maintained," said the former Environment Minister Marina Silva. Thanks to the interim measure, the code now goes back to the House, where it may encounter a new battle: nearly all the changes made to the text by the rural caucus of the Senate were reversed by the Representatives.

The Attorney General of the Union, Luis Inacio Adams, minimized the risk of overthrow of the MP. "The accumulation of discussion is enough to keep the text." The veto itself will also be analyzed.

"STEPLADDER"

Adams only made two vetoes public yesterday. One of the articles achieved removed environmental principles from the law. The other established the "consolidation" of production areas on the riverbank by eliminating minimum size of the band for restoration of riparian areas (known as Permanent Preservation Areas, PPA's).

The most controversial point of law, the question of the PPA's was resolved with greater flexibility for small producers and a toughening for large ones.

The government opted to add the MP called the "stepladder", i.e. a schedule of bands of recovery according to the size of the property.

Instead of everyone recovering 15 meters on the edge of small rivers, as determined in the original text of the Senate, the small ones will recover only 5 meters and the medium and large farms, 30 meters, as required by the law in effect today.

Translated by DAVE WOLIN