The House of Representatives’ Constitutional Affairs Committee approved a reform that restores the status of “state-owned productive companies” to CFE and Pemex and establishes that private companies will “in no case” prevail over state-owned companies in the various activities of the electricity industry.
With 21 votes in favor and 16 against from the Opposition, the legislators approved the reform to articles 25, 27 and 28 proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which also includes the Internet among the exclusive strategic areas of the State.
The approved opinion establishes that the planning and control of the national electrical system corresponds exclusively to the Nation in accordance with Article 28 of the Constitution, which states that functions that the State exercises exclusively will not constitute monopolies.
“The laws will determine the way in which private individuals may participate in other activities of the electricity industry. The State’s public company will be the one to provide the public electricity service,” it states.
He added that the objective of planning and controlling the national electrical system “will be to ensure the public service of transmission and distribution of electrical energy, preserve the security and energy self-sufficiency of the nation and the accessible provision of electricity, through the public company established by the State.”
The legislators rejected the reservations presented by the Opposition, but endorsed one presented by Morena, which returns the reform to the original wording of the presidential proposal.
The majority’s amendment specifies that “in no case” will private companies have precedence over the public sector of the State and adds that the latter will be in charge of the energy transition, for which it will use in a sustainable manner all the energy sources available to the nation.
Furthermore, it incorporates lithium as one of the State’s strategic areas and warns that the planning and control of the national electrical system will have the objective of ensuring the electricity service throughout the value chain and not only in transmission and distribution, as indicated in the opinion, and returns to the wording the mandate that another objective will be to provide the people with electricity at the lowest price, “avoiding profit.”
The reservation also adds a third transitional article to establish the repeal of the transitional provisions of the energy reform of December 2012 that oppose the new constitutional reform.
PAN member Héctor Saúl Téllez warned that changing the legal nature of the CFE will result in less autonomy, because it will be subject to government controls and regulations and state financing, which will foster a state monopoly.
He said that this regime received a self-sufficient and black company, which in 2018 paid 1.9 percent of the national GDP. However, between 2020 and 2023, the CFE recorded losses of 194.6 billion pesos attributable to the poor management of this Government and of Manuel Bartlett, whom he accused of only benefiting from his position.
He pointed out that between 2021 and 2023, the subsidies received by the Commission amounted to 334 billion, a figure higher than that of hospital, educational and security infrastructure, which causes people to pay twice for electricity, when paying subsidies and rates.
“It is an initiative that does not promote competition, that formalizes the CFE monopoly, that encourages price manipulation, discourages efficiency, modernization and cost reduction, price manipulation, limits investment in infrastructure, contravenes the treaty signed with our North American neighbors and creates uncertainty in foreign direct investment in electric energy,” he said.
During the debate on the reform, deputies from Morena and the opposition exchanged accusations.
Morena member Oscar Canton said that the reform promoted by the President seeks to return to the people what was “brutally” taken from them with the energy reform of 2013, which he described as stateless and commercial, by privileging the interests of private companies.
In response, PRI coordinator Rubén Moreira told him that although they talk about sovereignty, it is not them who are in charge, but drug trafficking.
“They talk about sovereignty, because if you don’t rule, then the drug traffickers do. That’s the truth. Otherwise, why do Mexicans go to Guatemala?” he questioned.
Moreira said that there is a narrative to position CFE’s management as a success, but he affirmed that today the company does not generate sufficient green energy.
“We are concerned that there is no more energy in this country, more than 20 states can no longer grow, they cannot receive automotive plants, because there is no electricity, as simple as that, because they have not generated electricity,” he said.
In his turn, PAN member Miguel Rodarte described establishing the public internet system as a strategic area as a mistake.
“What we are doing in constitutional terms is establishing that only the State can provide Internet service, which means we are reversing all services, the entire Federal Telecommunications Law, all services already provided privately and other telecommunications services. We have to be very careful,” he warned.
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