Once again, the Wetlands Law failed to pass the filter of the Chamber of Deputies. By pressure from governors, it ended up suspending the plenary of commissions that was going to dictate the project and, now, in the sectors that promote the law, uncertainty prevails. Although the front of allAlong with socialism and Graciela Camanohad been working for more than 10 days on a new opinion, the governors intervened, thumb down to the project and, as a consequence, they dragged in their refusal several pro-government deputies.
What happened to the Wetlands Law?
The official announcement came from the hand of the note signed by the block presidents of the FdT and Together for Change which adjourned the meeting. Nevertheless, the real death sentence It was the harsh statement that the governors of the Great North from United States a few hours before. The debate, for the moment, was on standby. “The problem here it is not the project, the problem here is that there are sectors that do not want the Wetlands Law”, they assured, with anger, from various legislative offices.
In the end, there was no one on the second floor of the Annex of the Chamber of Deputies at 10 in the morning, the time at which the meeting of the commissions of Natural Resources, Budget and Agriculture. A week ago, the environmental organizations —which did end up protesting outside Congress— were hoping that on Thursday, finally, an opinion on the overdue Wetlands Law would be issued.
However, despite the fact that until the last moment the legislators who promoted the law assured that it would come out, the expectation ended up imploding on Wednesday night with a suspension note that bore the signature of the head of the ruling bloc, German Martinez, and the rest of the JxC block presidents.
the news was a smack for the allied sectors that had been promoting the debate: the socialists Enrique Estevez and Monica Feinthe left and Graciela Camanodeath, they had the news for breakfast when it was made official half past eight p.mwhile several secretaries of the Ministry of Economy were still expounding on the 2023 Budget.
The official argument of the note was that time was requested to be able “to listen to the positions of the provincial governments”. The reality, however, was that from early on several pro-government legislators from mining provinces they had begun to put doubt his accompaniment to the opinion.
“The project does not come out like this,” San Juan and Riojan legislators maintained, in a low voice, while many of their fellow members of the block assured, simultaneously, that the accompaniment was guaranteed. “They played a double game on us for days. With us they agreed on modifications but later on the outside they questioned it to put pressure on it,” said, chewing anger, one of the FdT legislators who promotes the project of Leonardo Grosso (which is nothing more than a synthesis of the opinion of consent reached in 2020 with various political forces).
The initiative was Strongly resisted by the mining and rural chambers that, through press releases and a strong parliamentary lobby, denounced that, if the project was approved, any type of productive development in the wetlands would be prohibited.
The initiative what it does, in reality, is to establish a national inventory of all wetlands and then a land use planning from which, with an environmental impact study, it will be defined what activities can be carried out in those territories. “Does not prohibit economic activity“, they insisted, for weeks, from the ruling party and socialism.
Conscient of the mistrust generated in several legislators, however, Grosso, Enrique Estévez, Camaño, Germán Martínez and other deputies of the FdT began to include various modifications to the final opinion. Removed the moratorium that prevented carrying out productive activities in the wetlands until the territorial ordering was completed. It was reinforced provincial authority in the inventory process, practically leaving everything in your hands. “Every countryman who came with a modification proposal was included“, joked a legislator from the ruling party who spent eight hours on Tuesday finishing closing all the changes with the FdT deputies most reactive to the project.
On Wednesday morning, however, the governors of the Norte Grande released a statement that ended up ruining all the work done the night before and motivated, finally, the note of suspension. In the statement, the 10 leaders – eight Peronists, two radicals – insisted that the wetlands law should leave control of inventories to the provinces and should not paralyze production. “All the ‘buts’ that they put were already included in the final opinion and the governors knew it,” complained a pro-government deputy. “The changes were included, but the problem is that they do not want to give a debate. What they want is no law”they affirmed, on the other hand, from socialism.
The statement, finally, ended up whitening the doubts that several legislators had already been slipping low and, when the afternoon fell, the FdT began to make numbers and it became increasingly clear that they did not have enough signatures to get the opinion of majority. The fear, moreover, was that Together for Change —who had been working on presenting a unified opinion— could get more signatures and promote his initiative as a majority opinion.
For this reason, Martínez ended up deciding to postpone the plenary session and continue next week with the negotiations. “It was not a delaying maneuver, it was a strategic decision because we were not going to achieve an opinion or consensus. And without an opinion with political weight we cannot take it to the venue,” justified Martínez, who denounced having received several threats for that decision.
At the close of this edition, none of the sectors promoting the law knew how the debate would continue. Many were still brooding over how things had turned out. However, all the legislators with whom this newspaper spoke agreed on one thing: the project still has a chance of being approved.
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