The forecasts failed: nor was it a kilometer-long appearance, much less a tortuous exchange of epithets between the legislators and the general director of the Federal Electricity Commission. The opposition neither listened nor attended to the explanations of Manuel Bartlett Díaz, although neither could it dismantle the arguments of the ruling majority.
A dialogue of the deaf between those who fight for the rescue or destruction of the electrical system occurred yesterday within the framework of the gloss for the Third Government Report. A glimpse of what would be the debate in the legislative body where the presidential initiative to reform the Constitution and disappear the autonomous bodies was received and will be processed.
The positioning of the parliamentary groups and the first round of questions for Bartlett Díaz passed without major outbursts. The first of the speakers was the PRD Mauricio Prieto, secretary of the Energy Commission, who took the platform with a green plush dinosaur, as a reminder of the official’s past as former head of the Federal Electoral Commission in the validation of the presidential elections from 1988.
“Today in the morning I woke up and the dinosaur was still there,” he closed his speech. That gesture and a rude exchange between the PAN Jorge Triana and the PT Gerardo Fernández Noroña were just glimpses of a disaster that never happened. “Do not behave like peasants,” demanded the Moreno deputy Mario Carrillo Cubillas, “stop deceiving Mexicans and stop making a fool of yourself.”
The surprises of the day came from the PRI and the Green Party. The former – until the intervention of the Veracruz deputy Lorena Piñón – maintained a rather apathetic posture. And the pevemistas, for what seemed like a rebellion, after they anticipated that they would not endorse a reform that would mean a step back in clean energy, although their enthusiastic support for the proposal raised by Bartlett Díaz later became clear.
The director of the Federal Electricity Commission went to the green room of the Legislative Palace accompanied by his work team to answer questions from the members of the United Energy and Infrastructure commissions. His return to San Lázaro was repudiated by PAN, PRD and Emecist deputies.
“You have the right and obligation to be here, but you are not welcome,” declared Jorge Álvarez Maynez, coordinator of the orange bench, who in addition to claiming for the generation of electricity with polluting technologies insisted on the PRI past of the federal official.
His invectives about Bartlett Díaz’s links with Salinism or his real estate heritage were not even heeded by the aforementioned who — true to his style — chamaqueó the Zacatecan legislator. “Do you know how many coal plants we have?”
“If this time you side with the Mexicans, you can repay the historical debt that you have with the country,” suggested Mauricio Prieto, a legislator from Michoacán, who had called on the CFE director general to draw up a plan b, in in the event that his electricity reform initiative was rejected by the Legislative branch.
“If the reform is not approved,” the federal official said, “we will continue doing what we have done for the last three years: keeping rates low. There is no discussion about it”.
And then Bartlett Díaz defined that the CFE would seek to implement a single rate for the entire national territory. “CRE’s policy hinders the development of the country, because companies fleeing from high rates are looking for a place to establish themselves to pay less. With the reform we will have more freedom and greater instruments to continue with the lowering of rates ”.
Petista Reginaldo Sandoval, president of the Infrastructure Commission, posed four questions to the CFE director and a series of clarifications to opposition legislators. “We want to recover the leadership of the national electricity system through the CFE and in that, not a step back.” His colleague Fernández Noroña was rebuked by the PAN members in the most critical moments of a session conducted with inexperience by the president of the Energy Commission, Manuel Rodríguez González.
Side effects
Traces. In Mexico there is still no rule that regulates noise. What prevails is a circular generated by the conference of the Committee for the Environmental Protection of Aviation of the OCAI, four years ago. And in a forum of specialists held in Mérida last week, the head of SENEAM, Víctor Manuel Hernández Sandoval, showed an image with a map of the noise generated by operations at the Mexico City International Airport, dating from 2019 , with a comparison of noise levels: the take off of a Boeing 747-200 generates the same intensity of noise as the New York Subway or a food processor. Will be?
BLACK HAND? Before the polls that will define the six candidates that will run for governorships to be elected in 2022, the CEN from Moreno must comply with gender parity and ensure the three entities to which women will run. In Hidalgo, local cadres consider that he will be a candidate as ruled out, and the proof of this is that Senator Julio Menchaca has already begun to request —through Natividad Castrejón— “contributions” among his supporters ranging from 500,000 to one million pesos.
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Journalist and columnist for El Economista, author of Doña Perpetua: the power and opulence of Elba Esther Gordillo. Elba Esther Gordillo against the SEP.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx