Environmental groups and Brazil's infrastructure industry, usually on opposite sides of the licensing debate, are making the same demand: the country's Supreme Court, the STF, must rule quickly on the constitutionality of parts of the new environmental licensing law, in force since February. Both sides told Folha de S.Paulo that the delay creates legal uncertainty for projects and for environmental agencies.
The court had scheduled for August the trial of three lawsuits claiming the law is unconstitutional (known as ADIs) and one asking the court to confirm its validity (an ADC). The full bench pulled the case from the agenda after a new suit was filed, and no new date has been set, Folha reports. In its August 12 session, the justices ruled on cases involving the soy moratorium, but the licensing law was left out, according to the environmental news site ((o))eco.
What the law changed
The General Environmental Licensing Law (15.190/25) was approved in 2025, after Congress overrode 56 of the 63 vetoes issued by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, days after the COP30 climate summit in Belém, according to ((o))eco. It created the License by Adhesion and Commitment, under which developers simply declare they will meet official standards, with no prior technical review and only sample-based inspections, and the Special Environmental License for projects deemed strategic, added at the last minute by Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, who cited obstacles to the country's growth. Critics nicknamed the bill the "Devastation Bill".
According to ((o))eco, the law also expands waivers, allows automatic license renewals and lets states and municipalities draw up their own lists of activities exempt from licensing. One waiver covers maintenance and improvement works on existing infrastructure, including highways paved before, a passage the site says was written with the BR-319 highway, between Manaus and Porto Velho, in mind. Experts heard by the site expect extra deforestation pressure in the Deforestation Arc that already encroaches on southern Amazonas state.
Licenses already issued
For companies, the fear is that licenses already granted could be changed or reversed. Ronei Glanzmann, CEO of MoveInfra, an association that brings together EcoRodovias, Hidrovias do Brasil, Motiva, Rumo, Santos Brasil and Ultracargo, put it this way:
"We have a law in force, investments are being made and some projects are going through licensing by adhesion and commitment, as the law provides, and other interventions are exempt from licensing, such as maintenance works, also provided for in the law. The big problem is if this changes: what happens to the retroactive effects of these decisions."
On the environmental side, the Climate Observatory, a network of more than one hundred organizations that helped draft one of the suits filed in December 2025, wants the same speed. Fábio Ishisaki, the network's public policy adviser, said the delay "hurts business, because there is legal uncertainty about what will or will not stand" and creates doubt about how environmental agencies will apply the law.
Other actors have joined the push. The PSOL party and Apib, which represents Indigenous peoples in Brazil, filed their own suit in January, and on August 12 more than 30 religious organizations, including the CNBB, the Brazilian bishops' conference, and the Israeli Confederation of Brazil, sent an open letter to the justices defending constitutional safeguards, ((o))eco reports. There is precedent at the court: in 2022, the STF struck down simplified licensing for medium-impact activities. Until the case returns to the agenda, the law stays in force, licenses keep being issued under it, and the question of retroactive effects rests with the justices.