On August 8, 2025, the Brazilian President sanctioned, with 63 vetoes, Bill No. 2,159/2021 (“Bill”) and enacted Federal Law No. 15,190/2025, which established general rules for the environmental licensing of activities or enterprises that use environmental resources, are effectively or potentially pol-luting, or are capable of causing environmen-tal degradation, thereby instituting, at the national level, the General Environmental Licensing Law (“LGLA”).
On November 27, 2025, the National Congress overrode 52 of the 63 vetoes (over 80%)[1].
The Environmental Team at COSRO has compiled below a summary of the principal changes that enter into force with the override of the vetoes:
- Federative entities regain the competence to define the typolo-gies of activities or enterprises subject to environmental licensing (Article 3, XXXV and XXXVI; Article 4, §1; Art. 18, §1)..
- Exemption of environmental licensing for activities involving services and works aimed at maintaining and improving infra-structure in preexisting facilities or in rights-of-way and easement areas, including previously paved highways and maintenance dredging (Article 8, VII).
- Properties registered in the Ru-ral Environmental Registry (“CAR”) pending official validation are deemed under regulari-zation (Article 9, §1, II, “a”).
- Small-scale dams for irrigation purposes are considered to be of public utility (Article 9, §7).
- Simplification and exemption of environmental licensing for activities related to basic sanitation, energy, and national energy security (Articles 10 and 11).
- Prohibition of conditions in environmental licenses that require the entrepreneur to maintain or operate services under the responsibility of the Public Administration (Article 14, §5).
- Definition, in Article 22, of the requirements for issuing the License by Adhesion and Commitment (“LAC”).
- Possibility of corrective environmental licensing through the issuance of a LAC (Article 26, §§1–3).
- Possibility of extinction of criminal liability for operating activi-ties without enviromental license (Article 60 of Federal Law No. 9,605/1998) when the LOC is requested spontaneously and all requirements are fulfilled (Article 26, §5).
- Reinstatement of the non-binding nature of opinions issued by authorities regarding the impacts of the activity or enterprises on In-digenous or Quilombola lands, on protected cultural heritage, or on protected natural areas, in relation to the decision of the licensing authority (Article 42, I and III). As a result, the decision of the licensing authority becomes sovereign over the conclusions of the other intervening entities.
- Requirement for intervening authorities to issue opinions on the Terms of Reference (“TR”) and the Environmental Impact Study and corresponding Environmen-tal Impact Report (“EIA/RIMA”) only in cases affecting (directly or indirectly) Indigenous lands with homologated demarcation and titled territories of remaining Quilombola communities (Arti-cle 43, I, “a” and “c”; Article 44, I, “a” and “c”).
- Possibility of external interventions in fully protected conservation units (Article 54, §§1–2), provided that such intervention is minimized and previously com-municated to the management authority.
- Limitation on intervention of other federative entities when the environmental licensing proceding is conducted by a different competent authority (Artcle 65).
- Inclusion of Paragraph 3rd in Ar-ticle 36 of Federal Law No. 9,985/2000 (“National System of Nature Conservation Units – SNUC”):
§3 When the enterprise affects a specific conservation unit or its buffer zone, the affected unit, even if not be-longing to the Full Protection Group, shall be one of the beneficiaries of the compensation established in this article.
- Revocation of Paragraphs 1st and 2nd of Article 14 of Federal Law No. 11,428/2006
(“Atlantic Forest Law”):
Art. 14. The suppression of primary vegetation and secondary vegetation in an advanced stage of regeneration may only be authorized in cases of public utility, and secondary vegetation in a medium stage of regeneration may be suppressed in cases of public utility and social interest, in all cases duly characterized and justified in their own administrative procedure, when no technical and locational alternative exists for the proposed undertaking, subject to the provisions of item I of Art. 30 and §§1 and 2 of Art. 31 of this Law.
The provisions relating to the Special Envi-ronmental License (“LAE”), subject of the Provisional Measure No. 1,308/2025, were not assessed by the National Congress.
To access our previous analyses of the main aspects of the LGLA, its impacts and debates, including issues relating to decentralization of competence, creation of new types of licenses, exemption hypotheses, and risks to social participation, access:
[1] Available at https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2025/11/27/congresso-derruba-52-itens-de-veto-a-lei-geral-do-licenciamento-ambiental.
