House Committee begins analyzing PEC of billions

A special committee of the Chamber began to analyze, on Thursday morning (7), the proposed amendment to the Constitution that authorizes the government to create aid for truck drivers, doubles the value of the gas voucher and expands Auxílio Brasil until the end of the year.

If approved, the text goes to the plenary, where it should be analyzed this Thursday. To pass, it needs the support of at least 308 deputies, in a two-round vote. If it remains unchanged, it goes to enactment.

The vote on the PEC had been postponed on Tuesday (5), in a meeting marked by confusion between the opposition and the president of the collegiate, Celina Leão (PP-DF), who accelerated the work so that the rapporteur, Danilo Forte ( União-CE), could read the opinion until midnight. This will allow the vote to take place this Thursday, after the statutory period of collective view – two sessions.

The maneuver generated criticism from the opposition, which stated that the rapporteur had only read his vote during the meeting, and not the text of the substitute, which includes, in addition to the PEC of billions, the proposal that seeks to maintain a favored regime for biofuels. Celina Leão, however, dismissed the argument.

To allow the vote to take place in the plenary this Thursday, the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), scheduled a session for 6:30 am – the meeting ended at 6:31 am. With that, the collective view period ended. The meeting at which the PEC will be voted on was scheduled for 11 am. Deputies will be able to register presence and vote remotely, through the Infoleg application.

The special commission meeting began with attempts to obstruct the opposition and the Novo party. Celina Leão and the rapporteur criticized what they saw as sexist behavior by the opposition against the president of the collegiate.

The plenary session should also be marked by attempts to obstruct the opposition, which may use points of order to try to postpone the consideration of the text. On Tuesday, deputy Alencar Santana (PT-SP) already anticipated one of the strategies: resorting to article 114 of the Transitional Constitutional Provisions Act.

The provision says that the PEC procedure, “when it leads to an increase in expenses or income waiver, will be suspended for up to 20 days, at the request of a fifth of the members of the House, under the regimental terms, for analysis of its compatibility with the New Regime”. Supervisor.”

In the special commission, Celina Leão denied the point of order and said that the suspension of the proceedings was not among the duties of the presidency of the collegiate. Only the board of directors or higher instance could suspend it, according to the deputy.

Last Friday (1st), an act by the Board of Directors added the PEC to another proposal that was already being processed in the Chamber and which deals with biofuels. As a result, the text did not need to be analyzed by the CCJ, the main committee of the House, which analyzes the admissibility of PECs. The decision also shortened another process, as the other biofuels proposal was already in the special commission, a stage in which the merits are analyzed.

To speed up the vote in the Chamber, Danilo Forte gave up making changes to the texts approved in the Senate and released a report in which he merges the texts of the two PECs into a substitute.

PEC 15 seeks to maintain a favored regime for biofuels. The text adds an item to the article of the Constitution that deals with the right of all Brazilians to an ecologically balanced environment, to seek to guarantee an advantageous tax situation for non-polluting fuels.

The text does not exactly establish the tax rates that must be levied on biofuels. These percentages must be established by means of a supplementary law. As long as the complementary law is not approved by Congress, this competitive differential for biofuels in relation to fossil fuels will be guaranteed by maintaining the difference in rates applied to the two types at the level in force on May 15 this year.

Already the PEC of billions, approved by the Senate last Thursday, institutes a state of emergency to allow President Jair Bolsonaro to break the spending ceiling and open public coffers three months from the elections.

The text gives the government the go-ahead to boost social programs until the end of the year without running into restrictions in the electoral law, which exist to prevent the use of the public machine in favor of any candidate. Bolsonaro ranks second in polls, behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

The PEC brings measures that will have a total cost of BRL 41.25 billion – a value greater than the BRL 38.75 billion originally agreed, in yet another move to increase the bill. When the measures to tackle the rise in fuel prices began to be discussed, the extra expense was projected at R$ 29.6 billion.

The text provides for the temporary expansion of Auxílio Brasil by R$200, bringing the minimum benefit to R$600 by the end of the year, and authorizes the government to create an aid for self-employed truck drivers, in addition to doubling the value of Auxílio Gás.

There is also a R$ 2 billion benefit for taxi drivers and a forecast to increase by R$ 500 million resources for the Alimenta Brasil program, which finances the purchase of food for donation to low-income families.