Federal government wants to charge R$29 billion in environmental fines

When the prescription occurs, the Union loses the right to collect fines drawn up by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). According to the new understanding, the AGU now maintains that the counting of the period for this prescription is interrupted during the carrying out of certain steps, such as inspections and preparation of opinions. In practice, the new understanding extends the time the government has to prosecute offenders.

Another change of understanding concerns the nullity of more than 45 thousand infraction notices produced by environmental inspectors, worth R$18 billion. During the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro, Ibama decided to annul the penalties imposed, as it considers the notification of offenders by notice to be an irregularity. Now, the AGU maintains that notifications by notice are regular, and, therefore, the collection of fines must continue.

Ibama's maneuver could lead to the prescription of fines totaling billions of dollars

Exclusive report from Folha de S.Paulo presented documents from the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) that point to a new offensive by the organization's leadership with the aim of prescribing 45 thousand environmental fines, whose fines for offenders amount to R$18,8 billion.

Together, the two changes reverse the possible prescription of 183 thousand infraction notices, reaching a total of R$ 29,1 billion in environmental fines, according to a survey carried out by the Specialized Federal Attorney's Office with Ibama, a unit of AGU that provides consultancy to the environmental agency.

(With Agency Brazil)

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The elected government's technical team works with a list of priorities in the environmental area, in an attempt to stop the effects of curto deadline of measures taken by the Bolsonaro government. A crucial point of this work, as Estadão found, is adopting measures to suspend the current rules on environmental fines, which have allowed the prescription of thousands of infractions committed across the country.

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