“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.…

“The two greatest enemies of free enterprise in the United States … have been, on the one hand, my fellow intellectuals and, on the other hand, the business corporations of this country.”

– Milton Friedman. “Which Way for Capitalism?” Reason, May 1977, p. 21.

“To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.”

– Carl Pope (Sierra Club). Quoted in Dean Calbreath, “Pickens Pitches Plans to Shift U.S. Away From Oil,” San Diego Union Tribune, June 25, 2008.

They are not against capitalism. They can be very charismatic, in the know, and mainstream. They may be industry leaders. They are always politically correct and receive good press. And they can, often do, pledge allegiance in the abstract to the American way of free enterprise.…

“The Indiana Petroleum Associa­tion, whose members feared the combination of locational conven­ience and discount prices from cost economies, lobbied the state Fire Marshall who warned of the hazards of self‑service. Effective June 1, 1930, a statewide regulation allowed only station owners or regular employees to dispense gasoline.”

“For a price premium estimated to be between three-to-five cents per gallon, the benefits of Oregon’s longstanding self-service ban are said to be less spillage, less risk of fire, and a trained person ‘to maintain a clear view of and give undivided attention to the pumping process’.”

The rise and legalization of self-service at the service station is one of the longest and most colorful episodes in the history of US oil and gas regulation. Until recently, only New Jersey (1948–) and Oregon (1951–) still had laws making it illegal to offer serve yourself gasoline and diesel.…