The government will insist on the legal collection of R$ 29.1 billion in environmental fines. The new posture results from the alteration of two legal opinions of the Advocacy-General of the Union (AGU), which deal with the prescription of the collection of sanctions.
When prescription occurs, the Union loses the right to charge fines issued by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). Based on the new understanding, the AGU now maintains that the counting of the period for this prescription is interrupted during the performance of certain steps, such as inspections and preparation of opinions. In practice, the new understanding prolongs the time the government has to prosecute violators.
Another change in understanding concerns the nullity of more than 45,000 notices of infraction produced by environmental inspectors, in the amount of R$ 18 billion. In the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, Ibama decided to annul the penalties imposed, as it considered the notification of offenders by public notice to be an irregularity. Now, the AGU maintains that notifications by public notice are regular, and therefore, the collection of fines should continue.
Together, the two changes revert the possible prescription of 183,000 infraction notices, reaching a total of R$ 29.1 billion in environmental fines, according to a survey carried out by the Specialized Federal Attorney with Ibama, the AGU unit that provides consultancy to the environmental agency. .
The new legal opinions were approved by the Advocate General of the Union, Jorge Messias. “The environmental infraction cannot compensate financially,” said the attorney general in a statement released by the AGU. The agency also stated, in a note, that the measure will provide “legal security for the continuity of collection” of environmental fines.
The change in understandings also went through the scrutiny of the Federal Attorney General Adriana Maia Venturini and the Legal Consultancy of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, with the help of the National Attorney for the Defense of the Climate and the Environment.
In one of his first acts after taking office, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a decree that reversed the annulment of penalties that had been invalidated by Ibama. In the same norm, he reversed changes that had been promoted by the previous government in the administrative processes that deal with environmental fines.
