March 16, 2023

11:03

Gabriel Abreu – Amazon Agency

MANAUS – The federal lawmaker José Priante (MDB-PA) was elected on Wednesday, 15, president of the Commission on Environment and Sustainable Development of the House of Representatives. He was nominated by 13 votes in favor, two voted blank. The choice of the three vice-presidents of the collegiate was postponed. Environmentalists heard by AMAZON AGENCY criticized the parliamentary choice.

José Priante has defended miners and criticized a Federal Police operation that destroyed mining equipment. Created in 2004, the Environment Commission debates and analyzes proposals on environmental policy, environmental law, renewable natural resources, flora, fauna, soil, and sustainable development. Priante is a cousin of Pará governor Helder Barbalho (MDB).

“More than a vote, I will try to be a mediator of the debate. I will safeguard, above all, the need for debate,” said Priante. “I know the responsibility of discussing sustainability. It is time to think about the country for the next generations”, he pointed out.

Apprehension

The organizations of the Climate Observatory network received the election of Representative José Priante (MDB-PA) to the presidency of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee of the House of Representatives (CMADS) with concern.

Director of Public Policy at SOS Mata Atlântica, Malu Ribeiro explains that the Environment Committee needs to reflect the real needs of Brazil. For her, it is essential that it becomes a space for dialogue, positive agendas for the environment, and the participation of civil society and the scientific community.

“We need to face the climate emergency, fulfill Brazil’s commitments to the Paris Agreement, to COP15, to zero deforestation, and to the UN’s water action agenda, which begins to be written this March. We need these points to be in sight and to become effective as public policies. We hope that the moments of resistance and confrontation of the past legislature, when the proposals were aimed at ending, for example, the Atlantic Forest Law, with conservation units, besides other huge setbacks in environmental legislation, have been left behind. We will be present, proposing agendas, but also making resistance whenever necessary”, says Malu Ribeiro.

The advocacy coordinator of the Democracy and Sustainability Institute (IDS), Marcos Woortmann, said that society expects the National Congress Committees, whose mission is to debate the content of proposals that may become laws for all Brazilians, to be chaired by exponents in each area of expertise.

“The Environment Committee, therefore, requires from its members, and especially from the presidency, a commitment to the environmental agenda. Our concern is that, in the immediate future, when the world will be evaluating the Brazilian government’s change of course, at the COP30, in Belém, the CMADS will maintain the anti-environmental course that marked the past legislature. It will be disastrous for Brazil, legally and politically”, he explained.

Environmental racism

For the director of climate and city of the Peregum Black Reference Institute, Mariana Belmont, the Environment Committe should be chaired by those who are concerned and responsible for the present and the future of the Brazilian socio-environmental agenda.

“We make a point of mentioning the social aspect, because the new administration needs to have, at the center of its actions, the fight against environmental racism, since we are talking about the lives, especially, of black and peripheral people. Environmental racism kills thousands of black people, indigenous people, women and children in Brazil. It kills our biomes. Social participation and human rights must stop being just a discourse and become a reality”, Mariana emphasized.

“At a time when the climate crisis requires the National Congress to promote advances in socio-environmental protection, it is worrisome that the presidency of the commission is not held by a congressman with a history of activity in this area. We hope that his management will be marked by the prevalence of consensus and by the containment of serious setbacks in progress,” says Mauricio Guetta, legal advisor for ISA (Socio-environmental Institute).

“We have, once again, in the House Environment Committee, a president whose background is linked to the ruralist agenda and support for anti-environmental projects. The outlook is very worrying. It is now up to the lawmaker to prove otherwise, with practical actions. Our country can no longer bear so many attacks and so much destruction in the environmental agenda”, concludes Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.

Defense of the miners

Last year, José Priante said that a Federal Police (PF) operation, which destroyed machinery that was mining in the Munduruku Indigenous Land, was “hollywood” and “of little intelligence”. According to him, the inspectors were doing “something spectacular”.

“I am not defending illegal mining, the irregularity, but I affirm that miners are not bandits. It is unintelligent to destroy equipment. No environmentalist can justify that to me. It is a waste to destroy assets. I am in favor of curbing irregular activity. A guerrilla climate is being created”, said the congressman.

The federal representative is investigated for involvement in a corruption scheme in the former National Department of Mineral Production (DNPM) in Pará, now the National Mining Agency (ANM). The congressman indicated employees who were arrested, accused of collecting bribes to favor mining companies in the state. The investigation, which is in progress at the Federal Supreme Court (STF), investigates whether Priante would be the hidden partner of companies benefited by the scheme.

Profile

José Priante started, this year, his seventh term in the House of Representatives, always for the MDB (previously, PMDB). He has chaired other House committees, such as Urban Development; and Public Security and Combating Organized Crime. Before that, he was a city councilman in Belém (PA), and a state lawmaker in Pará.