López Obrador proposes to further strengthen the state Federal Electricity Commission

Manuel Bartlett, director of the CFE, during a morning press conference.Andrea Murcia / CUARTOSCURO

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has sent this Monday a preferential initiative to reform the Electricity Industry Law.

This proposal must be discussed as a priority in the Chamber of Deputies, where the president's party, Morena, has a majority.

The proposal proposes limiting the production of private electricity and favoring that generated by the state Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).

The legislators, who began today the last period of sessions prior to the midterm elections on June 6, have 30 days to debate the changes suggested by the Executive.

The proposal proposes modifying eight articles and four transitory articles that were approved in 2015 during the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto in what the PRI Administration celebrated as an agenda of structural reforms.

The energy company, from which the rule that Morena now wants to change is derived, ended the state monopoly in the gas and oil industry and opened the sector to private companies.

The Government of López Obrador seeks to "strengthen the State productive company, CFE, for the benefit of the national interest" and "guarantee energy security as a strategic piece of the superior concept of national security," Congress said in a statement after receiving the presidential initiative.

If approved, the state-owned CFE would further establish itself as the leading power distribution force in the country.

And the National Center for Energy Control (Cenace) would be obliged to prioritize the energy produced by hydroelectric plants controlled by the Commission, leaving other generating sources such as wind power in the background.

At the end of the distribution queue would be renewable energies, such as solar, managed by private consortia.

Since the start of the government, López Obrador has given the CFE, led by the controversial ex-PRI militant Manuel Bartlett, greater weight in the policies of the Ministry of Energy.

This reform, if approved by the majority of Morena, would further swell the power of the parastatal, which has been the subject of recent criticism for power outages during the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.

The Commission cut off the service of almost 700,000 users for non-payment during the first months of the pandemic.

With the preferential initiative, López Obrador also seeks to eliminate the CFE from being obliged to buy electricity through auction, one of the novelties imposed by the Peña Nieto reform.

Now you must evaluate the profitability of the energy you purchase from independent producers.

Since coming to power, the Morena government, which is leading a crusade against corruption, has been in charge of exposing the favoritism, cronyism and conflicts of interest of its predecessors in the energy sector.

However, the energy policy of the current six-year term has been limited in its quest to turn towards a growth model for renewable energies.

The PRI has anticipated that, if the initiative is approved in the Chamber of Deputies, as it is feasible for it to be, it will challenge the norm before the Supreme Court of Justice alleging its unconstitutionality.

The opposition party, and who promoted the reform that today is about to be extinct, argues in a statement that the Executive's proposal "aims to eliminate the efficient dispatch of electricity generation plants, thanks to which clean energies have made their way into being cheaper than conventional coal, fuel oil and diesel thermoelectric plants ”.