PAN vs. PRI Proposals

Today, in addition to eating my morning broccoli, I read Macario Schettino's economics blog post from El Universal, and I'm feeling a lot more enlightened for it. He goes over the differences between the PRI and PAN energy reform proposals, which are mostly minor, with two exceptions: the constitution of the advisory council, and the level of involvement of private industry and refineries and pipelines. 

In the first, the PRI plan calls for four additional full-time Pemex citizen advisors, to be selected by the president and ratified by the Senate. (Now, the advisory board of 11 is comprised of five union reps and six government officials.) Calderón wants two of them to be part-time, presumably so that they may be prominent businessmen fulfilling a public service. Schettino criticizes the proposed selection procedure, arguing that it would unnecessarily politicize the process. 

The second difference is that under the PRI plan, private businesses would be able to build refineries and pipelines, but not operate them after their completion. Pemex subsidiaries would take over after construction. Schettino says that in terms of policy (though not politics) this is a flawed idea, because it forces Pemex to absorb all the risk.