Abstract
The formulation of most environmental policies begins in the legislative branch. In this context, political actors propose the main initiatives that become laws and influence the implementation of environmental policy. In Brazil, since 2004, the Câmara dos Deputados [lower house of Congress] has a permanent commission that only deals with the environmental agenda, namely the Commission on the Environment and Sustainable Development. Brazil is one of the countries that hosts the greatest biodiversity in the world and, therefore, plays a very important role in global environmental governance. Thus, investigating the places where political decisions are made on the Brazilian environmental agenda is fundamental. Permanent commissions in Brazil can hold public hearings, which are spaces that allow the participation of representatives of civil society and thus encourage dialogue between different actors interested in environmental policies. In this chapter, I seek to analyze the performance of this commission since its creation, in 2004, up to 2019. The objective is to investigate the main themes discussed, the laws proposed, the more active parties and representatives and to observe that civil society groups have access to dialogue in this political field. This Brazilian legislative experience has positive aspects and may serve as an example for the formulation of similar institutions in other countries.
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Notes
- 1.
The cutoff date used in the analysis does not include the year 2020 because the global context of the COVID-19 pandemic altered the functioning of the National Congress, which meant the permanent commissions interrupted much of their work.
- 2.
There are numerous examples of Brazilian political-institutional spaces that allow popular participation. Participatory budgeting, for example, was a successful initiative implemented in Porto Alegre, RS, which allowed the population to express their opinion on how public money should be spent. This initiative has been replicated elsewhere and has been the subject of much research. In the environmental field, Brazil has the National Environment Council (Conselho Nacional de Meio Ambiente, CONAMA), which brings together representatives from different sectors of society and works with its state (CONSEMAS) and municipal (COMUMAS) counterparts at the local level. They are consultative and deliberative bodies of the National Environment System (Sistema Nacional de Meio Ambiente, SISNAMA) and were established in 1981, by the National Environmental Policy.
- 3.
RICD: This formal document contains the operating rules for the lower house. Theoretically, it should guide the way in which representatives develop their actions within this legislative space.
- 4.
This is set out in Art. 24 of the RICD.
- 5.
For more details, access https://www.camara.leg.br/comissoes/comissoes-permanentes (in Portuguese, English and Spanish).
- 6.
The internal regulations of the lower house establish that no permanent commission can have more than thirteen hundredths of the total number of representatives, currently 66 of 513, and no less than three and a half hundredths, 17 of 513, disregarding fractions (Art. 25, § 2, RICD). Considering, whenever possible, the principle of party proportionality (Art. 25, § 1, RICD).
- 7.
The idea of checks and balances has been discussed since Federalist Papers no. 51 [50] by James Madison, among others, but for a more recent discussion that involves the importance of this instrument in contemporary democracies, I indicate the work of Acemoglu and Robinson (2012).
- 8.
Organização da Sociedade Civil de Interesse Público [Civil Society Organization of Public Interest].
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Corrêa, C.P. (2022). Environmental Agenda, Legislative Power and Social Participation: An In-Depth Analysis of the Commission on the Environment and Sustainable Development in Brazil. In: Leal Filho, W., Vidal, D.G., Dinis, M.A.P., Dias, R.C. (eds) Sustainable Policies and Practices in Energy, Environment and Health Research. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86304-3_6
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