The Senate approved this Wednesday (3) the provisional measure that creates a program to encourage the replacement of the old fleet of trucks and buses in circulation in Brazil.
The proposal also contains a device considered controversial that allows oil and gas exploration and production companies to withdraw research and innovation money to apply to the renewal of the fleet of trucks and buses.
The provisional measure was symbolically approved by the senators. As it had already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies, it goes directly to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The opposition also sought to overturn the device referring to research resources, asking for this mechanism to be voted on separately. However, she was eventually defeated.
The provisional measure creates Renovar, a program that seeks to aggregate initiatives to progressively remove end-of-life vehicles and encourage the renewal of the fleet of trucks, buses and vans.
The device that provoked the reaction of some senators foresees the alteration of the law that provides for the national energy policy. The new text of this legislation then provides that “contractors for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas will be able to apply resources to promote the renewal of the circulating fleet within the scope of the Program to Increase Productivity of the Road Fleet in the Country (Renovar)”.
The law on energy policy determines that oil companies must invest up to 1% of their gross revenue to finance research on oil and gas.
The change promoted by the provisional measure makes this obligation more flexible by providing that resources from fleet renewal will be considered for the calculation of compliance with contractual obligations in research and development.
The provisional measure provides that these alternatives can be used to fulfill obligations in the period between 2022 and 2027 and also to compensate for obligations that have not been fulfilled previously.
The text also provides that an act of the Executive branch will regulate the use of resources destined for research, development and innovation and will also determine the maximum percentage of the total value of the contractual obligations of research, development and innovation to be allocated to Renovar.
“No one is against, in any way, the change to modernize the transport issue. We have trucks and transport in these companies that are already scrapped. Often old cars are on these roads. So, no one is against renewing the fleet. Now, the source of resource is exactly that 1% of research, development and innovation, people, for God’s sake. It’s you transferring research and innovation to scrap”, said PSDB leader Izalci Lucas (DF).
“We understand the need to replace fleets. But we are talking about petrochemical companies, which are able to do it with their own resources. We have never made so much money. We are talking about a surplus, in relation to Petrobras. of dividends. Replacing the fleet is a necessity, yes, for environmental reasons, but this provisional measure transforms it, I will repeat here what I have seen on social media, we are transforming knowledge and science into scrap”, said senator Simone Tebet (MDB-MS).
The parliamentarian also asked for a provision to be included in the provisional measure that would require that the fleet be replaced by electric or biofuel-powered vehicles. The rapporteur of the proposal, Luiz Pastore (MDB-ES), however, rejected amending the text, arguing that in this way the proposal would need to return to the Chamber of Deputies.
The text also provoked concern from entities that defend the public funding of science. In a note released in April, the ABC (Brazilian Academy of Sciences) states that the MP “attacks in an unusual and drastic way the financing of scientific and technological research in the oil and gas sector.”
ABC stated that “resources that should finance research and development projects, providing advances in economic and business productivity, are being diverted to the demobilization of a fleet of heavy vehicles and the treatment of their scrap.”
The program seeks to reduce the country’s logistics costs, increase the productivity, competitiveness and efficiency of road transport and contribute to the reduction of pollutant emission levels by the road fleet.
The text of the provisional measure provides that joining the program will be voluntary. The benefits will be directed primarily, according to the proposal, to the autonomous cargo carrier and associates of road cargo transport cooperatives registered as cooperative members before the ANTT (National Land Transport Agency).
The resources destined by public, public and mixed economy companies will be destined exclusively to defray the value of the truck or bus and for its dismantling or destruction as scrap.
Renovar will be operated by ABDI (Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development), which may be remunerated by users of the Renovar platform for the use of services and which must keep a record of the operations carried out.
The operation of the initiatives may be through business or operational partnerships between the institution coordinating the initiatives and the funding institutions or public or private partners.
According to the text of the provisional measure, it will be up to the Executive to define the criteria for choosing partner blasting companies. These companies will allocate to the national initiative or to the accredited companies the value, defined in the act of adhesion, for dismantling or destroying the vehicle as scrap.
If the bus or truck is so deteriorated that the revenue from dismantling or destruction does not offset the costs of the operation, Renovar may compensate the company responsible for dismantling up to the maximum amount defined by the program board. These companies may sell the materials obtained by dismantling or destroying the vehicle.
The BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development) may also create a program of credit lines for the direct beneficiaries of the program and for the dismantling or destruction chain of vehicles.
