US legislators complain to Trump on Mexico energy policy

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Saturday hotly rejected complaints by a group of 43 U.S. lawmakers about government policy favoring state companies in the energy market.

Six U.S. senators and 37 representatives wrote this week to President Donald Trump complaining about “actions by the government of Mexico that threaten U.S. energy companies’ investment and market access and undermine the spirit of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” that went into effect this year.

López Obrador rejected the complaints, saying his administration would continue to give preference to the government's Petroleos Mexicanos oil company and the state-owned electrical utility, arguing the free trade agreement did not cover Mexico's energy sector.

“In line with the legal framework we have, we are going to give preference to Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission, let that be clear,” López Obrador said at an event Saturday marking the restarting of an old coal-fired power plant in northern Mexico.

López Obrador has rejected environmental arguments against the government's aging, dirty coal and fuel-oil generating plants, saying that because they are government-owned, the government must defend them.

“What is the role of government, then? To protect private interests? No!," the president said. “The only businesses that public servants should be interested in are state-owned companies.”

López Obrador has made fossil fuels and state-owned companies the centerpieces of his economic policy.

The previous administration had approved energy-sector openings in 2014 under which private firms were allowed to build cleaner renewable and gas-fired plants in Mexico and sell their electricity into the power grid. But López Obrador...