Tuesday July 8 marks the end of President Javier Milei’s one-year period with the delegated legislative powers that Congress granted him in 2024. The libertarian economist issued a flurry of decrees in the hours leading up to the deadline, making decisions over numerous government functions that, otherwise, would have required he obtain congressional approval.

Between Monday and Tuesday, Milei cut or modified over 20 state offices and institutions regulating industry, agriculture, transport and energy.

One of the most important decrees published Tuesday in the Official Gazette was the resolution dissolving the National Highway Directorate, the Road Safety Agency, and the National Transit and Road Safety Commission, as well as the concession of 9,120 kilometers of roads.

According to Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni, the government decided to eliminate the offices related to road safety and highway regulations because of the “corruption in public works,” naming Cristina Kirchner’s “Vialidad” case conviction as an example. Following the publication of the decree, the structure of the National Commission for Transport Regulation (CNRT) will be modified, and it will be renamed the Agency for the Control of Public Transport Concessions and Services.

Vialidad was the government entity responsible for managing and building road construction throughout the country. According to Minister Sturzenegger, its duties will be transferred to economy ministry offices.

Milei also downgraded the National Cancer Institute, which went from being a self-governing institution to an “organizational unit” under the purview of the health ministry. According to a government press release, this transformation will not alter the institute’s operations, seeking only to “optimize its operational capabilities.”

Milei also issued a decree demoting the INTI and INTA, two key technology institutes that deal with industry and agriculture regulations and measurements. He also eliminated institutes devoted to indigenous and small-level agriculture, seed production, and the regulation of the hemp and medicinal cannabis industry.

Their duties will be redistributed within the agriculture secretariat and the ANMAT regulating agency.

On Monday, Milei had also merged the state entity that regulated natural gas and electric energy, creating the National Entity of Gas and Electricity Regulation to group the two. The decision came on the heels of a natural gas crisis that left thousands of homes without heating during a polar wave last week.

A year of delegated legislative powers

Congress granted Milei special legislative powers in June 2024 as part of the approval of the massive state reform bill known as Ley Bases. The text established a public emergency in administrative, economic, financial, and energy-related issues and gave him the power to legislate over those topics for one year.

In his Monday press conference, Adorni said that Milei issued 65 presidential decrees to enact changes to government dependencies. He added that the president’s order saved the state US$2 billion.

Over the past year, the government eliminated the INADI institute against discrimination, racism and xenophobia; and privatized companies such as Intercargo, Corredores Viales and Energía Argentina, among a hundred measures related to the state structure.

Memory policies were also affected by these delegated powers. Weeks ago, the government decided to downgrade the ex-ESMA museum and the National Memory Archive, merging them and putting them under the purview of an umbrella organization. It also downgraded the National Genetic Database, a historic institution key for finding robbed children of dictatorship victims. 

The reforms were mainly carried out by Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger, who set up a countdown to July 9, 2025, when the delegated powers were set to end.

The three memory institutions, which were previously self-governed, were stripped from their autonomy and no longer have the ability to manage their own funds and resources.

When the Ley Bases passed in Congress, the National Genetic Database was included in a list of protected institutions, meaning the government could not dissolve it nor take over its management. The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, however, have denounced that the decision to downgrade the database resulted in a “de facto take-over” and that the genetic material safeguarded by it “are at risk.” In a recent statement, they demanded lawmakers to protect it.

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