“If he is elected president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador should not just tolerate but champion Mexico’s energy reforms. Confidence will lead to greater foreign investment into oil, increasing the capital stock of the host country to result in higher oil production.”
The front-runner for the Mexican 2018 election (scheduled for July 1) is Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO for short). The former mayor of Mexico City has been runner-up in the past two presidential elections.
Due to his leftist and populist leanings, AMLO’s political opponents have claimed he will be the Mexican Hugo Chavez. Although he claimed in 2016 that he would seek to cancel contracts signed under the Mexican energy reform of 2013–2014, his position now seems to have calmed to where an authoritarian cancellation is very unlikely.
Background
The Mexican energy reforms of 2013-14, associated with the current president’s “Pact for Mexico,” allows foreign companies greater participation in Mexican oilfields.…
Continue Reading[Editor Note: Last October, Joe Romm at ThinkProgress published a post, September sets alarming global temperature record and negates a favorite denier talking point. In his words: “September 2017 smashed multiple climate records, alarming scientists and further negating a favorite talking point of climate science deniers.” In this post, Romm updates readers on recent monthly temperatures in light of the ‘global lukewarming’ position.]…
Continue Reading“A [September 1, 2015] article in the Los Angeles Times, ‘Unintended Consequences of Conserving Water: Leaky Pipes, Less Revenue, Bad Odors,’ discusses the infrastructure problems faced by sanitation districts. Reduced use reduces wastewater flows, which means there is less water in the sewer system to move solids, which are then collecting causing corrosion, back-ups and odor problems – especially in areas like Sacramento where the system is flat, precluding any gravity-driven movement through the system.”
– Marta Weissman, California’s Water Conservation Regulations and the Law of Unintended Consequences, Part 1: Management Impacts, Nov. 2, 2015.
Could plans to ration urban and agricultural water in California result in a big stink of sewer plant odors that will do little to solve long-term drought cycles? What Marta Weissman identified above lies in waiting for what California water planners have in mind for rural areas.…
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