The government plan of senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), who is contesting the presidential runoff, proposes an environmental licensing system that could authorize projects even without an impact assessment, the elimination of powers of federal environmental agencies and the authorization of gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing, the controversial underground technique known as fracking. The information was reported by Folha de S.Paulo, which obtained the proposal and published the story on Friday (9).
According to the newspaper, the document calls for reviewing the role of three federal agencies: Ibama, Brazil's environmental protection and enforcement institute; ICMBio, which manages federal conservation units; and Funai, the agency responsible for Indigenous peoples. The proposal echoes speeches the senator himself made during the year: he defended ending "environmental shackles", called Ibama and ICMBio a "zealous empire", pledged to bring licensing decisions "into the Presidency" and promised not to demarcate Indigenous lands, repeating the policy of his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), now in prison for leading the coup plot. Flávio's campaign, contacted by the newspaper since Tuesday (6), did not respond to requests for comment.
An agenda aligned with Congress
The environmental priorities of the program follow the path already taken by Brazil's Congress in recent years, which approved an agenda criticized by environmentalists: the new licensing law passed in 2025, which created the Special Environmental License (LAE) with a priority review of up to one year for projects chosen by the federal government; looser rules on pesticide use; the marco temporal, a legal thesis restricting the demarcation of Indigenous lands; and a package of bills that together reduce 555,000 hectares of preservation areas and Indigenous territories. In 2026, lawmakers also advanced a bill that limits Ibama's enforcement powers against environmental crimes.
Returning to the Chamber of Deputies as a newly elected federal deputy, former environment minister Marina Silva (Rede) told Folha that the outlook worsens under a possible Flávio Bolsonaro government:
"It is a highly worrying scenario. Both because of the risk that regulatory frameworks could be demolished, as happened in Argentina, and because of the subservient posture toward Donald Trump's interests, even more so in a possible Bolsonaro government. This will hurt Brazil's economic, social and environmental interests."
Climate left out of the text
The proposal never mentions the terms "global warming" or "climate change", not even in reference to the recent heat waves in Brazilian cities, Folha notes. The text also ignores climate disasters such as the floods in Rio Grande do Sul, which hit 5.5 million people and caused R$ 319.1 billion in losses to agribusiness, and the droughts in the Amazon, where water scarcity affects thousands of families, river transport and power generation. Neither Flávio's plan nor that of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) mentions El Niño, a phenomenon that could reach unprecedented strength and impact in the coming period.
Flávio and Lula face each other in the runoff after the PL senator finished the first round ahead, with 47.03% of the vote against 45.16% for the PT candidate, according to results compiled by g1. On the environmental agenda, what is at stake is the structure of the agencies that police deforestation, protect conservation units and serve Indigenous peoples, at a time when Brazil faces increasingly costly climate losses, from the flooded South to the drought-stricken Amazon basin.