Daniel Mello      Reporter Agência Brasil

São Paulo – Vice president Michel Temer reports that negotiations have begun in Congress to draw up another Land Use Law (“Codigo Florestal”) as it is expected that president Dilma Rousseff will veto parts or all of the bill that was passed in the Chamber of Deputies at the end of April.

“There may be vetoes. Members of Congress are negotiating with the government. The objective is to reach an agreement on a new text that will adequately reflect what the government thinks and what the Congress thinks,” declared the vice president, a former president of the PMDB known for his negotiating skills.

At the end of last year, the government negotiated a satisfactory Codigo Florestal bill that was approved at that time by the Senate. However, even though the Senate bill had been subjected to hearings and discussions involving environmentalists, the executive branch and Congress (including members of the farm lobby in the Chamber of Deputies), the government was taken by surprise when the lower house rejected the Senate bill, rewrote the text and passed a Codigo Florestal that was completely different. The fingerprints of more extreme elements in the farm lobby (“bancada ruralista”) were all over it. The bill, instead of expanding protected areas, recovering areas already destroyed (“return to original state”) and reducing deforestation in Brazil (as the government wanted), would open huge new areas to deforestation and older pasture and crop areas to further destruction as ranchers and farmers would be allowed to expand their activities.

Arriving almost on the eve of the Rio+20 United Nations Sustainable Development Conference, the radical wording of the bill put the government in an uncomfortable position. The president has made it clear that the bill is not acceptable and at least two ministers (Institutional Relations and Environment) have gone public with declarations in favor of vetoing parts or all of the it. President Dilma has until May 25 to make a decision.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English - content modified

Link - Temer diz que Congresso já está negociando novo projeto de lei caso o Código Florestal seja vetado