President Fox Sends Congress Formal Legislative Initiative to Reform Electrical-Power Sector

President Vicente Fox has raised the stakes in the debate regarding the future of Mexico's electricity sector by presenting the Congress with a formal proposal to allow private companies to invest in construction of power plants. Fox submitted the bill to legislators in mid-August, two weeks before the beginning of the new session of Congress.

The initiative requests changes to the Mexican Constitution, which could doom the bill in Congress unless Fox can overcome opposition from the former governing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which holds a slim plurality in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

"The only certainty at this time is that the presidential bill to open the electric sector has a very complicated, obstacle-filled future," political analyst Alfonso Zarate told The Dallas Morning News.

Existing statutes allow private companies to produce electricity for their own use or for sale to large industrial users, but under the Constitution they are not allowed to distribute power to individual domestic consumers.

The law has been interpreted to mean that private companies cannot sell electricity to the state-run Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and Compania Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC). Fox's initiative would amend the Constitution not only to allow such sales but to expand the network of privately operated plants that would supply the CFE and LFC.

Proposal to change Constitution …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: President Fox Sends Congress Formal Legislative Initiative to Reform Electrical-Power Sector. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: SourceMex Economic News & Analysis on Mexico. Publication date: September 25, 2002. Page number: Not available. © 2009 Latin American Data Base/Latin American Institute. COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.