By Mark Stevenson | The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — In a steamroller operation that ended Monday, a majority of Mexico’s state legislatures approved sweeping energy legislation that will allow private companies to explore for and produce oil and gas in the country.
It took only about three days for 17 of the 31 state legislatures, one more than needed, to approve the transformation of Mexico’s state-controlled oil industry that Congress passed last week. Some of the state congresses voted through the laws in the early morning hours after little or no debate.
President Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, relied on its dominance of most legislatures to push the bill through despite protests staged by opponents of the changes.
