Brazilian congress overrides presidential vetoes, weakens environmental protections for development projects

Brazil’s Congress has delivered a major blow to environmental protections by overriding dozens of presidential vetoes on controversial legislation that critics call the “devastation bill.” In a November 27 joint session, lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to overturn 56 of 63 vetoes that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had imposed on the General Environmental Licensing Law. The Chamber of Deputies voted 268-190 to override the vetoes, while the Senate voted 50-18.

The legislation, originally passed in July 2025 amid widespread protests, significantly weakens Brazil’s environmental licensing system. Most concerning to environmental advocates, the new law allows businesses to bypass environmental impact assessments for communities that haven’t completed their land titling process. This change will disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples and Quilombola communities—descendants of enslaved people—who often lack formal land titles despite occupying ancestral territories.

According to the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), a Brazilian nonprofit, 32.6% of Indigenous territories and 80% of Quilombola communities would be excluded from mandatory environmental impact studies under the new rules. “This has cemented the institutionalization of environmental racism and deepened conflicts in traditional territories,” said ISA attorney Alice Dandara de Assis Correia.

Perhaps most controversially, the legislation permits farms that have engaged in illegal deforestation or land grabbing to operate and sell products without environmental licenses. Environmental groups warn this could accelerate destruction of critical ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest while undermining Indigenous rights and Brazil’s climate commitments.