Since taking office, President Javier Milei has slashed environmental spending, dismantled climate institutions, and shifted key responsibilities to provincial governments, reshaping Argentina’s environmental governance in favor of an extractive-led development model.
At around 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 26, a letter accepting the resignation of Fernando Brom, Argentina’s Undersecretary of Environment—the highest-ranking environmental authority in the federal government in practice—began circulating through WhatsApp groups used by public administration officials. By Tuesday, June 30, his departure had been confirmed.
Brom had already submitted his resignation late last year after a series of public remarks that caused discomfort within the political leadership. Among other things, he had publicly criticized President Javier Milei’s disregard for and marginalization of environmental and climate policy.
In reality, during the libertarian administration and under both Brom and his predecessor Ana Lamas, the Environment Secretariat oversaw a process of institutional dismantling: state structures were reduced, responsibilities were transferred to provincial governments, budgets were cut, and national environmental regulations were relaxed. These changes have aligned with a development model that places resource extraction at its center.
From the first months of his administration in 2024, Javier Milei promoted policies that established economic priorities around five key extractive sectors: unconventional oil and gas, mining, agriculture, forestry, and livestock production. To advance this agenda, the government pursued two parallel objectives: creating new incentive schemes and tax exemptions for investors, while removing as many national regulations as possible.
The most prominent of these initiatives was the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), which grants tax, tariff, and customs exemptions for up to 30 years to both domestic and foreign companies investing more than USD 200 million, particularly in energy, mining, agriculture, forestry, and livestock.
In June of this year, Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved a bill known as the “Super RIGI.” If passed by the Senate, it would extend similar benefits to investments exceeding USD 1 billion in sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced biotechnology, and digital infrastructure.
Within the technological transformation envisioned by the administration, environmental protection and climate commitments have often been treated as obstacles rather than priorities.
The Milei administration has advanced several strategies to weaken and fragment environmental and climate governance. These include budget cuts, the elimination of institutional responsibilities, and legislative reforms aimed at relaxing existing environmental regulations.
A Shrinking National Environmental State
Since December 2023, Argentina’s environmental authority has operated without its former cabinet-level status and with its Treasury funding reduced by more than 80 percent. It has done so within a federal system marked by competing interests and under one of the world’s most climate-skeptical national administrations.
Milei has repeatedly described environmentalism as a political banner behind which Marxism hides. Many of his libertarian officers have also criticized environmentalism. Nahuel Sotelo, an Argentine politician and Secretary of Worship and Civilization, stated that he wished Argentina “polluted more”‘.
According to the latest budget analysis by the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), Argentina’s environmental sector has not seen such a low level of funding in at least nine years. The figure reflects a broader trend affecting environmental policy as a whole.
“Environmental policy in Argentina has historically been marginalized in budgetary terms. Since Milei took office, the deterioration has occurred both institutionally and financially,” said Matías Cena Trebucq, an economist at FARN and author of the report.
Under the previous administration, the environmental portfolio included six secretariats overseeing biodiversity, natural resources, waste management, climate change, pollution control, and administrative affairs. Decree 269/26, published in April, revealed the new structure of the current Undersecretariat, which now consists of only two directorates: Biodiversity, Environmental Relations and Cooperation; and Environmental Assessment and Control. The Climate Change Department has been eliminated entirely.
The cuts extend far beyond the central institution. According to Cena Trebucq’s monitoring report, programs related to the energy transition, waterway restoration, wildfire management, forest protection, and the National Parks Administration all experienced significant budget cuts and structural changes.
In 2025, funding allocated to energy-transition programs and funds fell by 63 percent compared with 2023 levels. The National Parks Administration saw its budget reduced by 32 percent, resulting in staff reductions and diminished operational capacity.
The National Fund for the Enrichment and Conservation of Native Forests experienced an even more dramatic decline, shrinking by 94 percent compared with the beginning of the Milei administration.
The fund was primarily intended to compensate landowners and producers for conserving native forests and to discourage the conversion of forested land into agricultural or grazing areas.
“The adjustment has occurred through two channels,” Cena Trebucq explained. “There has been a failure to update budgets to account for inflation, and there has also been under-execution of the funds that were allocated. Both factors contribute to the real decline.”
According to his report, environmental programs registered an average under-execution rate of 18 percent, with some programs spending as little as 31 percent of their allocated resources.
Regulatory Rollbacks and the Transfer of Authority to Provinces
Since Javier Milei took office, several reform efforts have sought to narrow the scope of national environmental legislation. The government has argued that many regulations are inefficient, burdensome, or vulnerable to corruption.
The first major package of reforms was introduced at the end of 2023 through the sweeping “Bases Law,” officially titled Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines. The original bill included provisions affecting laws governing glaciers, native forests, fisheries, and the energy transition, but it was removed by Congress.
More than two years later, the government has successfully modified only the Glacier Protection Law. The reform grants provincial governments the authority to determine which glacier areas perform strategic water-reserve functions and therefore merit protection.
According to both experts consulted by The Energy Pioneer, the change could weaken safeguards in previously protected areas and facilitate extractive projects, particularly mining operations. It represents the first major national environmental protection law to be relaxed during the Milei administration, though additional reform initiatives remain under consideration.
One proposal expected to be debated in July would amend the Fire Management Law, which currently restricts land-use changes in certain productive areas following wildfires. Other initiatives seek to loosen regulations affecting Indigenous territories and remove limits on foreign ownership of land.
Additional proposals aimed at reducing protections for native forests and transferring greater environmental authority to provincial governments have also been discussed, according to government officials who spoke to Argentine media in recent months.
“What is taking shape is the provincialization of environmental policy,” Cena Trebucq said. “And it is a provincialization involving provinces that often lack the resources necessary to assume those responsibilities.”
In that context, Patricia Bullrich, head of the ruling coalition’s Senate bloc argued that environmental governance should move away from what she described as a centralized approach.
“The goal is to reach an agreement that leaves behind a centralist vision and, as was done with glaciers, allows provinces to make decisions according to their own realities and legal powers,” she said during discussions surrounding the proposed reform of the Fire Management Law.
“At the provincial level, environmental agencies are often subordinated to ministries focused on production, such as energy or mining,” Cena Trebucq added. “Economic growth tends to take precedence over environmental considerations.”
Not everyone agrees with that characterization.
A source who works with provincial governments on productive-sector policy argued that the situation is more complex than critics suggest.
“I believe environmental policy in Argentina has always been strongly provincial,” the source said, requesting anonymity. “The Constitution grants provinces original ownership of natural resources, so environmental policymaking has traditionally emerged from the provincial level.”
Still, the source acknowledged significant disparities among provinces.
“Mendoza, for example, has developed a very sophisticated water-management policy because of its chronic scarcity. You do not necessarily see the same priorities in Buenos Aires Province,” the source explained.
The individual also noted what they described as a growing consensus around the idea that economic development requires public legitimacy.
“There is an increasingly deep understanding that no sector can develop without social license,” they said.
Nonetheless, environmental conflicts continue across the country, while provincial budgets have also come under pressure.
Climate Commitments at Risk
The federal government has advanced a handful of environmental initiatives, though they remain limited in scope. One example is a plastics bill intended to regulate the use of certain plastic materials and potentially harmful chemical components.
Even in that case, however, civil-society organizations have raised concerns that government representatives have aligned more closely with industry interests than with environmental advocates.
At the same time, several international environmental commitments ratified by Argentina appear increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled.
On climate policy, neither new legislation nor the implementation of existing laws has occupied a prominent place within the government’s agenda. According to the National Climate Action Observatory, produced by the NGO Sustainability Without Borders, many of the country’s 2030 climate objectives, whether established through international agreements or domestic legislation, are either only partially on track or no longer realistically achievable, with limited exceptions in certain sectors. This tendency is not exclusively the fault of the new administration. A recent report by Argentina’s National Audit Office (AGN) found that the previous administration, which is now in opposition to the current government, was also not on track to meet the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Although few observers expect major advances in national environmental policy in the near future, some provinces are beginning to develop their own local initiatives. For now, however, those efforts have not offset the broader erosion of environmental capacity at the federal level.
Argentina will hold presidential elections next year. Unlike some emerging opposition forces, the governing coalition has largely kept environmental issues outside its political discourse.
