Brazilian Senate Commitee Approves Bill Altering Environmental Licensing Rules

The Committee on Constitution, Justice, and Citizenship of the Senate approved, on April, a Proposal of Amendment to the Federal Constitution (PEC) no. 65 of 2012, which includes the Paragraph 7 to article 225 of the Constitution, altering the environmental licensing rules.

The referred provision to be included in the Federal Constitution lays down that "the presentation of a previous study of environmental impact entails authorization for execution of the works, which cannot be neither suspended nor cancelled by the same reasons unless in view of a supervening fact".

It is well known that the term of the works generally extends, due to, among other reasons, environmental licensing related matters, standing out among them the time spent by the licensing agency to analyse the environmental study impact, as well as due to suspension of the license resulting from matters subsequent to the concession.