The Chamber of Deputies generally approved the opinion that issues a new General Water Law and reforms the National Water Law.
After more than six hours of discussion, the opinion was approved with 328 votes in favor, 131 against and five abstentions.
The initiative, led by President Claudia Sheinbaum, seeks to define the rules on the use of this resource in production processes, organize concessions, and ensure its availability for the entire population.
In the session, the majority bloc made up of deputies from the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), Labor (PT) and the Green Ecologist of Mexico (PVEM) parties defended that the initiative respects the right to concessions and combats the hoarding of liquid and the black market.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Institutional Revolutionary Parties (PRI) and National Action (PAN) and Citizen Movement (MC) accused that the Government seeks to control this resource and use it for political purposes.
In the particular discussion, which will last until early Thursday morning, 529 reservations will be discussed with a list of 154 speakers.
Also read: Mining sector warns that reform of the Water Law threatens its operational continuity
According to the opinion, with the approved modifications the Mexican State will be solely responsible for regulating the use of water, outlining the actions that must be taken by the authorities of the three levels of government (municipal, state and federal).
In addition, the regime for transferring water rights between individuals disappears and it is determined that any water concession that is not used for authorized purposes must return to the National Water Commission (Conagua) so that it can decide on a better distribution and use of that resource.
It also integrates a catalog of concepts on water responsibility to recognize the practices that concessionaires or assignees will have, while creating a National Water Registry as a tool that favors the control and transparency of the concessions and assignments regime.
In the discussion, deputy Marcelo de Jesús Torres (PAN) considered that the new law “is a rigid, suspicious and hostile law” that lacks a budget, but has political control, cuts rights, weakens the producer, suffocates the industry, breaks with legal certainty, “turns water into the currency of political control, does not contribute to water policy and does not modernize anything but rather centralizes it.”
While Congresswoman Laura Ballesteros (MC) called for water justice for millions of Mexicans “because 20 million people do not have water, 1% of the population” and “today the intention is to make a political button, instead of a profound law that solves problems.”
With information from EFE
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