Lula avoids antagonizing Congress, throws a bone to environmentalists

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed part of the changes recently imposed by lawmakers on the structure of his administration, throwing a bone to environmentalists but avoiding frontally challenging Congress’s rural caucus on issues such as the demarcation of indigenous lands. Lula’s vetoes took effect with their publication in Tuesday’s official gazette. The president […]

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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoed part of the changes recently imposed by lawmakers on the structure of his administration, throwing a bone to environmentalists but avoiding frontally challenging Congress’s rural caucus on issues such as the demarcation of indigenous lands.

Lula’s vetoes took effect with their publication in Tuesday’s official gazette.

The president didn’t veto the transfer of indigenous land demarcation duties, an important tool for environmental preservation, to the Justice Ministry from the newly-created Indigenous Peoples Ministry. 

Land disputes are a hot-button issue for the rural caucus, which is trying to use its muscle in Congress (300 out of 513 House members and 47 of 81 senators) to narrow indigenous groups’ right to claim ancestral territories. Three weeks ago, the House passed a bill restricting the notion of protected indigenous land. The Senate has yet to vote on the bill.

Earlier this year, a top government official pledged that Brazil’s sanitation agency ANA would be kept within the Environment Ministry. The promise was not kept; in fact, ANA was moved to the Regional Integration Ministry’s portfolio.

Lula, however, vetoed the transfer of water resources management, keeping it under the responsibility of the Environment Ministry.

The president also vetoed the lawmakers’ attempt to return the coordination of federal intelligence activities to the Institutional Security Office (GSI), which is heavily dominated by military officers. 

This GSI role was indeed in Lula’s original January 1 decree, but he later moved Brazil’s intelligence agency to the purview of the Office of the Chief of Staff, in an effort to demilitarize strategic areas of the government after the January 8 riots.

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