Postponement of the royalty lawsuit will depend on Fux’s consultation with the rapporteur, says the governor | Politics

The law that established the distribution of oil resources among all states and municipalities, even those that do not produce oil, was approved in 2012 by Congress and sanctioned by then-President Dilma Rousseff. The section referring to the division of resources, however, was suspended by judicial order (provisional decision) of Minister Cármen Lúcia, rapporteur of the action, in March 2013.

The trial has already been postponed three times and is now scheduled for December 3. The Rio government predicts that, if the precautionary measure is revoked, the estimated loss of income for the state and producing municipalities in Rio de Janeiro is R $ 57 billion in five years.

Governor Cláudio Castro, the president of the Rio Legislative Assembly, Deputy André Ceciliano, and the State Attorney General, Bruno Dubeux, met with Luiz Fux on Tuesday at the STF headquarters.

According to the governor, he asked the president of the STF to continue the work of mediation between oil producing and non-oil producing states.

“Last year, Minister Toffoli [ex-presidente do STF] A work of conciliation between the states began. This work, due to the pandemic, ended without continuity and, mainly the producing states, need this matter of conciliation so that they do not have the judgment. Our request here, even for the trial appointment, is that we continue the settlement process that Toffoli initiated, “said Castro.

According to Castro, Luiz Fux will consult the minister before making a decision on the date of the trial.

“The president guaranteed that he will consult the reporting minister and that then the process initiated by Minister Toffoli will continue so that after this conciliation we can have the judgment well made by the Supreme Court, together with the producing and non-producing states. “Castro declared.

When granting the precautionary measure in 2013, Minister Cármen Lúcia argued that the Constitution guarantees royalties as compensation to the producer, but said that a new law cannot harm the acquired right of producers. Furthermore, he stated that one state cannot benefit from harming another.

“The weakening of the rights of some states does not strengthen the federation, it compromises it as a whole. And if once the Constitution is disobeyed in the name of one need, another may be a breach on behalf of another. that there will be no more Constitution, ”said Cármen Lúcia.

After judging the precautionary measure, the Supreme Court will still have to resolve the matter, at another time, definitively (since the precautionary measure is a provisional decision) and define whether the rules provided in the law will be revoked or not.

Under current law, states without oil extraction receive 7% of royalties and municipalities without oil extraction receive 1.75% of royalties.

The suspended law provided that states and municipalities without oil extraction would receive 21% of the royalties and, as of 2020, 27% of the total collected by the Union.

Under the suspended rule, the redistribution of taxes would increase the transfer of money to non-producing states and municipalities and decrease the portion destined to the states and municipalities where extraction takes place.

The founding partner and director of the Brazilian Center for Infrastructure (CBIE), Adriano Pires, predicts, in this hypothesis, “a tragedy, an incredible social chaos.”

“Or Rio de Janeiro manages to reach an agreement with the other entities of the federation – and an agreement in which it will have to lose money, there is no way; now the question is how much it will lose, right? – or if it does not try to convince. to the STF to postpone the trial again, so that there is more time to negotiate with the rest of the federation entities, “said Pires.” If this trial occurs, in my opinion, the possibility that Rio loses is very great “he added.

For the deputy Paulo Ganime (Novo-RJ), “any change at this time can cause the definitive collapse of our state, which has already entered the tax recovery regime and is trying to recover.”

According to state deputy André Ceciliano (PT), president of the Legislative Assembly, the payment of royalties is not a benefit, but a compensation for environmental risks.

It maintains that the new percentages resulting from the application are only adopted for the new contracts, signed after the ruling of the action.

“RioPrevidência receives 83% of these resources from the state. The remainder finances public security and the payment of the state debt. In addition, there are the resources that are transferred to the municipalities, which are essential for the maintenance of public services, such as health and education, ”said the deputy.

In April, federal deputies in Rio de Janeiro presented the then Supreme President, Minister Dias Toffoli, a request to postpone the trial.