Environment Minister Marina Silva told senators Wednesday that there can be no political conciliation with technical decisions, supporting a recent move by Brazil’s main environmental agency to deny oil giant Petrobras a license to drill an exploratory well off the coast of the Amazon.
“There’s no conciliation for technical issues,” she told a hearing of the Senate’s Environment Committee. She then compared the environmental agency Ibama to Anvisa, Brazil’s federal health regulator. “I can’t place Anvisa in a round of conciliation to decide, through a political, administrative decision or whatever, whether a particular medication is toxic or not.”
Although Ms. Silva did not mention Covid or vaccines, the Jair Bolsonaro administration for a long time tried to push hydroxychloroquine as a medication for the coronavirus, despite its efficacy being disproved by various institutions in mid-2020. Furthermore, the environment minister said that science has defeated climate “deniers,” and added that the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration “is not denialist.”
The Solicitor General’s Office on Tuesday issued a legal opinion arguing that Petrobras can explore oil reserves in the so-called Equatorial Margin without a specific type of study called a Sedimentary Area Environmental Assessment (AAAS in Portuguese). Ms. Silva addressed the issue today, claiming that Ibama “never said” the study was a legal requirement.
However, the decision issued by Ibama in May states that the AAAS is “not a mere bureaucratic formality,” and that there is a “need” to “ensure” such studies for the areas that lack them.
Ms. Silva was originally scheduled to appear at the Senate hearing on June 14. Her absence surprised most senators, and the deputy environment minister, João Paulo Capobianco, told lawmakers that day that she was undergoing medical tests. The next day, a São Paulo hospital announced that the minister had been hospitalized for three days.
At the time, the press office for the Environment Ministry did not clarify to The Brazilian Report when or if senators were informed of her presence in the hospital. The press office of Senator Leila Barros, head of the Environment Committee, told us they were informed on June 13 and that the meeting was not canceled in advance because Mr. Capobianco could stand in for Ms. Silva.
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