Senate may vote this week on a project that regulates parliamentary amendments

The Senate plenary can vote, on Wednesday (13), on complementary bill (PLP) 175/2024, which regulates the payment of parliamentary amendments.

Approved by the Chamber of Deputies last week, the matter establishes rules for transparency and execution of expenses suggested by senators and deputies in the Annual Budget Law (LOA).

The text is an attempt to resolve the impasse over the payment of individual mandatory amendments. Known as “Pix amendments” or special transfers, they total R$8 billion in 2024.

The release is suspended by determination of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which requires rules on social control, transparency, impediment and traceability.

PLP 175/2024 was proposed by deputy Rubens Pereira Júnior (PT-MA). The Senate analyzes another matter on the same topic: PLP 172/2024, by senator Angelo Coronel (PSB-BA), rapporteur of next year’s Budget project (PLN 26/2024). Coronel’s proposal received more than 15 amendments and awaits an order from the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.

“Pix Amendments”

Under the current rule, the money from “Pix amendments” reaches the city hall or state account without being linked to any type of project-related expenditure. The resources cannot be used for personnel expenses and 70% of them must be linked to investments.

Before the release of resources was suspended by the STF, the money could be directed to city halls by parliamentarians from different states and execution went beyond federal control bodies.

According to PLP 175/2024, which came from the Chamber, the author of the amendment will need to inform the object and value of the transfer to the beneficiary entity (state, Federal District or municipality). The preferential destination is for unfinished works previously proposed by the parliamentarian himself.

As for supervision, the text provides that resources transferred through Pix amendments are “subject to assessment by the Federal Audit Court (TCU)”. Special transfers intended for entities in a calamity or emergency situation recognized by the federal Executive Branch have priority for execution.

The entity benefiting from the “pix amendment” must indicate on the Union’s transfers and partnerships portal the bank branch and the specific current account for deposit. In addition, you must communicate to the TCU, the respective Legislature and the state or municipal audit courts, within 30 days, the amount received, the object’s work plan and the execution schedule.

Maximum limit

PLP 175/2024 contains specific guidelines for bench, individual and committee amendments. The text sets a new parameter to calculate the maximum limit for parliamentary amendments. According to the current rule, they can add up to 3% of the Union’s net current revenue in the previous year – 2% for individual amendments and 1% for bench amendments.

According to the project approved by the Chamber of Deputies, the amendments must follow the net revenue criterion in 2025. In the case of commission amendments, the total value would be R$11.5 billion.

From 2026 onwards, the limit for individual and state bench amendments must follow the rules of the sustainable fiscal regime, provided for in Complementary Law 200, of 2023, of the New Fiscal Framework. The rule establishes the correction of public expenses by the Broad National Consumer Price Index (IPCA) of the previous year, plus an increase equivalent to 70% or 50% of the real growth in primary revenue from two years before.

In the case of committee amendments, which are not mandatory, the calculation is different. The limit is based on the global value of the previous year, plus the IPCA of the last 12 months ending in June of the year prior to the one to which the voted Budget refers.

Bench amendments

The original project provided for four to eight bench amendments, depending on the size of the population of each state. But the deputies changed the proposal to set eight amendments for each state bench.

In addition to these eight, up to three amendments can be presented per bench to continue works already started. However, to achieve this, the text requires that the works be registered as investment projects provided for in the Constitution, which last for more than one financial year.

Another change concerns the list of priorities for so-called structuring projects. Instead of a decision by the Executive Branch, PLP 175/2024 attributes this definition to the Budget Guidelines Law (LDO).

According to the text, the benches cannot designate resources generically in a schedule that includes projects with different works in several federated entities. But there is an exception: works located in metropolitan regions or integrated development regions. In these cases, the amendments must precisely indicate the object in the state represented by the bench.

Priority actions

Another possibility of applying this type of amendments will be in priority public actions and equipment for the state bench. But, in this case, resources cannot meet isolated demands or indications from each parliamentarian.

The text also prohibits the presentation of amendments whose programming could result, during execution, in voluntary transfers or agreements to more than one federative entity. The exception is for municipal health funds.

independent party

The project allows for the possibility of dividing the value of the amendment. But in this case, each independent party cannot be less than 10% of the total value of the amendment, except for public health actions and services.

The text considers an independent part:

• purchase of equipment and permanent material by the same federative entity;
• carrying out funding expenses, as long as they can be carried out in the same budgetary action;
• purchase of equipment and permanent material in the same budgetary action.

Instead of structuring actions, as foreseen in the original project, the text approved by the Chamber of Deputies classifies the following actions as priorities, at the choice of the bench:

• sanitation;
• housing;
• health;
• adaptation to climate change;
• transport;
• water infrastructure;
• infrastructure for regional development;
• infrastructure and urban development; and
• public safety.

In addition to these areas, the approved text includes tourism themes; sport; agriculture and fishing; science, technology and innovation; communications; disaster prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery; defense; human rights, women and racial equality; culture; and social assistance.

Committee amendments

PLP 175/2025 regulates the presentation of amendments by permanent committees of the Chamber and Senate for budgetary actions of national or regional interest. They must provide precise identification of the object, without generic programming designation.

Half of these amendments should go to health. To indicate expenses, parliamentarians must observe the priority schedules and technical criteria indicated by the federal manager of the Unified Health System (SUS).

The indication of expenses must be made after the publication of the LOA, when the commission receives proposals from party leaders after consulting the benches. Then, if approved by the committees, the nominations are published and forwarded to the executing bodies.

Technical impediments

All parliamentary amendments are subject to the possibility of technical impediment. These hypotheses are defined by the Budget Guidelines Law (LDO) each year and by PLP 175/2024 itself, which provides for 26 cases of restriction.

According to the proposition, it is prohibited to impose impediments to parliamentary amendments that are not equally applicable to Executive Branch programs.

Among the technical impediments, the text provides for the following:

• object incompatible with the budgetary action;
• problems that take time to resolve and make spending commitments in the financial year unfeasible;
• absence of an approved engineering project or prior environmental license, when necessary;
• failure to prove that the beneficiary entity will have sufficient resources to complete the project or its financing, operation and maintenance;
• lack of thematic relevance between the proposed object and the institutional purpose of the beneficiary entity;
• failure to make adjustments requested in the proposal or work plan;
• failure to indicate a bank and account to receive Pix amendment, spending less than 70% of the Pix amendment on capital expenses, lack of indication of the object to be executed with Pix amendment resources and value of the object lower than the minimum for entering into agreements.

Each executing body or entity must identify and formalize the existence of a technical impediment, under penalty of liability. But it is also up to these units to analyze and determine the measures to be taken to ensure the implementation of the amendment.

Contingency

The project’s rapporteur in the Chamber, deputy Elmar Nascimento (União-BA), changed the rules on limiting the execution of amendments in the case of a drop in the revenue estimate. The parliamentarian removed a provision from the text that provided for limitations in the case of a budget blockage. Only the reference to contingency was maintained.

The blocking of resources occurs to comply with the expenditure limit established by the fiscal framework and may imply the cancellation of the expenditure if the intended fiscal result is not achieved. The contingency is carried out to meet the annual primary result target and there is a greater chance that the expense will be executed by the end of the year.