As seen on the Washington Post
By Associated Press” Updated: Friday” May 25″ 2:20 PM
SAO PAULO — Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff used her line-item veto powers on a congressional bill that weakened the nation’s benchmark environmental law protecting the Amazon.
Rousseff removed 12 articles from the bill” among them sections environmentalists feared would most lead to increased destruction of the rainforest.
The bill passed congress last month after more than a decade of efforts by Brazil’s powerful agricultural lobby to make changes to what was one of the world’s toughest environmental laws.
Environmentalists wanted Rousseff to veto the entire bill. But the measure won wide support in the nation’s congress” and a full veto would have caused a political backlash for the president in the legislature” trapping several other” unrelated measures.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.