Brazil’s Congress has pushed through legislation to weaken environmental safeguards for mining, infrastructure and agricultural projects, overriding a partial presidential veto just days after the end of COP30 and setting the stage for a possible showdown in the Supreme Court.

Earlier this year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed some of the most controversial sections of the environmental licensing legislation, dubbed the “devastation bill” by environmentalists, who say it would sweep away Indigenous land protections and could help fast-track the paving of an Amazon highway.

But in a November 27 plenary vote led by lawmakers aligned with Brazil’s powerful farm lobby, Congress reinstated 56 of the 63 articles vetoed by Lula in August – essentially returning the legislation to its original form.

Warning that the legislation will effectively do away with environmental licensing requirements, several Brazilian NGOs and the left-wing PSOL party said they planned to mount a legal challenge over the constitutionality of the new rules at the country’s Supreme Court.

Juliano Bueno, president of the Arayara Institute NGO, one of the groups planning a legal fight, said the legislation meant “Brazil will be unable to meet its climate targets or the commitments it recently made at COP30”.

“Death blow” for Brazil’s climate push

Lula’s allies said the congressional decision was a sharp blow as Brazil strives to play a prominent role in global efforts to fight climate change and deforestation, including in the Amazon.

Institutional Relations Minister Gleisi Hoffmann said it “contradicts the government’s environmental and climate efforts just made at COP30″, calling the decision “very bad news”.

Government-allied Senator Eliziane Gama told the plenary session the new licensing rules were “shameful for Brazil” and “a death blow to the main agreements formed at COPs”. Others warned that scrapping the vetoes would open the doors to lawsuits from Indigenous and environmental rights groups.

Despite record turnout, only 14% of Indigenous Brazilians get access to COP30 decision-making spaces

The bill’s backers, who include agribusiness and the mining association, have said Brazil needs to streamline environmental licensing to boost production of minerals vital to the clean energy transition, and foster economic development in remote parts of the country.

Davi Alcolumbre, an ally of the ruralist caucus and president of the Senate, told the plenary overturning the veto was “fundamental to clearing the issue of environmental licensing as a whole”.

“There are entire regions waiting for Congress to finish this discussion, so that great projects can move past the paperwork, generating work, generating income and economic growth, always with environmental responsibility,” he told the session.

After being approved by the Senate and Congress with a strong majority, the legislation is expected to be ratified by both chambers this Wednesday.

Oil exploration fast track?

Among other provisions, the new environmental licensing rules fully reinstate two controversial figures: a system that allows some projects to issue their own licences, called Environmental Licence by Adhesion and Commitment (LAC), and a Special Environmental Licence (LAE) to fast-track “strategic projects”.

Bueno of the Arayara Institute said the LAE in particular could weaken controls on oil exploration, mining projects and gas-powered plants, which could be labelled as strategic for national development.

Lula’s veto had lowered the scope of the self-licensing process in the LAC, by only allowing small-scale projects to qualify for it. Observers interpreted this as mostly roads and infrastructure upkeep. With the veto gone, it would allow for larger projects, too.

A controversial expansion of the BR-319 highway connecting the Amazon cities of Manaus and Porto Velho could benefit from the LAE, despite environmental groups saying it could cause deforestation in the area to skyrocket by allowing new routes into the forest. Under the new law, the road could be paved without new environmental studies.

The new regulations also exempt states from having to consult Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities that lack formal land ownership titles on infrastructure projects. Land tenure was one of the main Indigenous demands at COP30.

Before the Congress vote, Brazil’s National Foundation for Indigenous People said 297 Indigenous lands – accounting for more than 40% of the total – would be left unprotected if the bill returned to its original form.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled in the past that Indigenous lands can pre-exist current land demarcation titles, meaning the titles are not always necessary for land rights to be recognised.

“Congress has institutionalised environmental racism and amplified conflicts in traditional territories,” said Alice Dandara de Assis Correia, environmental lawyer at the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), a Brazilian NGO, one of the other groups planning a legal challenge.

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