Lobbying, normal and poorly regulated in the Legislative

Dora Villanueva

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, April 14, 2022, p. 5

The presence of pressure groups in favor of private interests is a normalized practice, but hardly regulated in the Legislature. Business chambers, consultants, former politicians and public servants are dedicated to promoting the private agenda in the Chamber of Deputies, 63 of them with a specific interest in energy issues.

Beyond the Mexican Wind Energy Association (AMEE) –which, among others, is made up of Enel, Naturgy, Sempra and the Grupo México Energy subsidiary–, industrial chambers, as well as offices dedicated exclusively to lobbying, are stationed in San Lázaro with the aim of convincing legislators to advance a regulation in favor of interests that are not entirely transparent.

The minimum regulation that exists on pressure groups in the Chamber of Deputies adheres to a list of lobbyists, whose update is every six months. In its most recent version, it has 271 records between legal entities – which can be companies or civil associations – and natural persons, none under the name of Paolo Salerno, or his firm Salerno & Asociados.

In the midst of the debate on the electrical reform proposed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the role of lobbyists in legislative debates resurfaced. Paolo Salerno, who among other things is presented as coordinator of the Energy Committee of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico, was seen sitting in a seat next to deputy Edna Díaz.

The regulations of the Chamber of Deputies outline certain regulations on lobbyists in its articles from 263 to 268. It limits that there may be 20 for each commission and two for each moral person. It does not delve into more requirements, beyond an application for registration. Although it does prohibit deputies and support staff from receiving from them gifts or payments in cash, in kind, or any other type of benefit of any nature (…) to illicitly influence decisions.

In addition to companies directly focused on energy issues, such as AMEE, which is made up of national and foreign firms whose participation in the electricity sector is public; Energía San Pedro, a self-generated energy project launched in 2009 in Nuevo León; Galca Energy or Onexpo Nacional, business associations of the largest liquid hydrocarbon industry in Mexico; other figures seek to lobby the energy sector.

Among them, the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic, the Transformation Industry Chamber of Nuevo León, the National Association of Bus, Truck and Tractor Producers, the National Cement Chamber, the Mexican Chapter of the International Chamber of Commerce, the Council National Maquiladora and Export Manufacturing industry, to mention a few.

However, among the firms expressly dedicated to selling convincing and negotiating with legislators and that are also interested in energy issues, include Total Strategic Advisory, a firm in which Fernando Lerdo de Tejada Luna, who was a spokesman for former President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, is a partner and general director; while the former deputy Eduardo Escobedo, who was deputy director of the Parastatal Industry of Transformation in the Ministry of Energy when it was called “Secretariat of Energy, Mines and Parastatal Industry (1982 to 1994), is director.

The same GEP Consulting and Analysis, which has among its partners María Teresa Gómez Mont, whose links with the National Action Party are inherited. In addition to having been a deputy for that party, she is the sister of Fernando Gómez Mont, Secretary of the Interior when Felipe Calderón was President. In the same lobbying firm is also Gustavo Almaraz Montaño, a former senator, as well as a member of the Special Committee for the Negotiation of the Latin American Free Trade Agreement and at the time director of the Mexican Association of Industrial Parks.