What is at stake in Brazil’s Congress today

Five hundred billion Brazilian Reais. An amount almost enough to cover Brazil’s primary deficit in the past four years. That’s just a part of the money at stake in a series of provisional decrees that will be debated in Brazil’s lower house today—and which may go down the drain if the federal administration and government do not reach an agreement. As lawmakers and the administration struggle to see eye-to-eye on the pension reform bill, a series of micro-reforms, issued by former President Michel Temer, are being overlooked. They take the shape of provisional decrees, a legal instrument allowing the president’s office to create legislation which takes immediate effect—which must then be confirmed by Congress or else it expires.

A total of 10 projects are set to expire by June 3, and representatives will try to approve seven of them today. Some are deemed as being of utmost importance to the short-term economic outlook, such as the bill creating a new framework for Brazil’s basic sanitation, one allowing foreign capital in domestic airlines, and the one making it easier for the government to privatize Infraero, the state-owned airport administrator.

And let’s not forget the bill establishing the current outlook of the presidential cabinet—with 22 ministries instead of 29, as it was under Mr. Temer—which is atop the agenda.

Sanitation bill

According to the Secretary of Infrastructure Development of the Economy Ministry, the sanitation bill alone is set to generate BRL 500 billion in...