Brazil's senate approved a bill that aims to standardize and, in some cases, speed up environmental licensing that the oil industry has blamed for slowing exploration projects.
The bill, which the senate approved Wednesday in a 54 to-13 vote, aims to create national standards for environmental licensing, with the goal of simplifying the process for projects that have a limited environmental impact.
The bill also aims to create a new type of environmental license for projects that are considered government priorities. These projects would be subject to a more simplified licensing process that would take one year at most.
The creation of a new type of licensing for these projects would potentially facilitate oil exploration in the Amazon, the senate said. The change comes as state-controlled Petrobras pushes to begin offshore drilling in the environmentally sensitive Foz do Amazonas offshore basin.
The bill would also exempt agricultural projects from obtaining environmental licensing but would continue to require farmers to obtain authorization to remove native vegetation.
It also allows small- and medium-sized projects to self-declare their environmental commitments, without the need to have a proper license. Senator Eliziane Gama criticized that proposal, using the disaster in the Brumadinho dam — which burst in 2019 and was considered a medium-sized project — as an example.
Brazilian energy think tank Instituto Acende called the bill an important milestone for Brazil, adding that if approved, it would "reduce legal uncertainty, administrative inefficiencies, and obstacles to sustainable development".
Environmentalists slammed the proposal, with Observatorio do Clima calling it the "greatest attack on environmental legislation in four decades". The legislation would approve nearly all new projects without environmental impact studies, the group said.
The bill will now return to the lower house because senators altered the original text.
