The Brazilian political system orbits around a powerful Executive Branch and a budget that is not mandatory, but rather a cap on expenditures. The president and ministers decide how much to spend on governmental programmes. The Legislature is considered to be reactive to the Executive, and to play a smaller role in public policies. Such preponderance of the Executive is reflected in the National Congress voting agenda, markedly dominated by bills introduced by the president, not by congressmen. The president usually introduces medidas provisórias (provisional measures demanding congressional referendum within 120 days) or urgent ordinary bills, leaving little room for bills introduced by deputies and senators to be considered and voted on by committees and the houses’ respective plenaries. Despite presidential preponderance upon Congress, changes in environmental laws are seen by public opinion as congressmen versus presidency conflicts. Controversial bills such as the new Forest Law enacted in 2012, and others aiming to change the Mining Code, or to curb the establishment of protected areas, are viewed as threats to the environment, or opportunities to development, depending on one’s point of view. Common sense tends to consider bills proposed by the Executive as initiatives to protect the environment, while the Legislature’s bias would be to lax legal restrictions on the use of natural resources, thus leaving to Congress the onus of a ‘grey’ or negative agenda. Here the authors examine all environmental bills introduced in the Lower House (Chamber of Deputies), their goals and main subjects, in order to compare Executive and Legislative roles and partialities in writing Brazilian environmental law.
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