Government sews new sanitation decree – 7/5/2023 – Market

The government is working with the National Congress to issue a new decree to maintain part of the changes made by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the Sanitation Framework, revoke previous decrees and avoid a defeat in the Federal Senate.

The PDL (draft legislative decree) that gave the Lula government its first defeat in the Chamber of Deputies was included in the agenda of the Senate this Wednesday (5), but the President of the House, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), agreed to postpone the vote.

The idea is to edit a first decree with the consensus excerpts, and build a second text, by means of a decree or bill, on the points that were the target of the Chamber of Deputies.

This Tuesday (4), the president of the Senate said that revoking the previous decrees “maybe it’s a good way”. Pacheco said that “it seems very clear” that the majority of the Senate believes that the changes should be made through a bill.

“Eventually, what the government intends to change in the Sanitation Legal Framework should be done by means of a bill. It is more appropriate. This is even the reason for the LDP’s existence. Unconstitutionality due to invasion of competence”, he declared.

The assessment among members of the government is that a bill would bring insecurity to the private market. To avoid a second defeat in the Chamber, however, the Planalto Palace intends to align the format with the President of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL).

Lula’s allies say that the future decree also has more chances of remaining standing because mayors have been pressuring parliamentarians so that the state sanitation companies regularize their contracts (established without bidding).

The leader of the government in the Senate, Jaques Wagner (PT-BA), said that the new decree should be “much less invasive” in the powers of the Legislative – one of the main criticisms of the National Congress.

“The private initiative, all it asks is that it not be a bill. Why do you start a bill and end up how? Who will plan investments, if I make a provisional measure? Then it became a total interrogation”, he told journalists in this third.

“What we want is to make a decree eliminating all or part of what is considered offensive and, if there is anything left that depends, then eventually you will pass the law urgently [constitucional].”

Since the PDL reached the Senate, the evaluation is that the changes made by Lula did not even have support from the base, and the government would be defeated if the text were put to the vote.

The rapporteur, senator Confúcio Moura (MDB-RO) —one of the deputy leaders of the government in the House— had been trying to postpone the vote in the Infrastructure Commission, of which he is chairman, but the opposition has pressured Pacheco to resolve the impasse.

“What the government wants is the inclusion of 1,113 municipalities that did not meet the requirements of the law. They do not have proven economic capacity and were out of interest in making a cluster of municipalities. So they are abandoned municipalities”, said Moura.

The rapporteur’s office spoke this Tuesday with the technical team of the opposition leader and former Minister of Regional Development of Jair Bolsonaro, Rogério Marinho (PL-RN). Faced with the government’s signal that it will revoke previous decrees, Marinho agreed with the removal of the PDL from the agenda.

The leader of the MDB, senator Eduardo Braga (AM), stated that it is “important to build an alternative” because there are no votes to overthrow the text that was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in May.

“There are conversations already at an advanced stage in the sense that the government can even evaluate the repeal of the current decree, the edition of a new decree excluding what would be achieved by the PDL”, he said.

“And then we find a wording that could be either for a PL or for the edition of a second decree that would solve, with limitations of legislative competence, obviously, the questions that remained pending.”