Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico's Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a historic energy reform aimed at luring foreign investment and ending the state's 75-year-old oil monopoly following a heated debate.
Supporters pumped their fists and chanted "Mexico!" after the vote, while leftist opponents called them "traitors."
The constitutional reform must now be approved by a majority of 32 state legislatures, most of which are expected to back it.
The legislation is the centerpiece of Pena Nieto's reform agenda, which has led to overhauls of education, tax collection and telecommunications to boost Latin America's second biggest economy.
But opening the oil and gas industry to private investment is a highly sensitive issue in Mexico, where many look back with pride at the expulsion of foreign companies by president Lazaro Cardenas in 1938.
Supporters of the reform insist that state-run energy firm Pemex urgently needs outside help to reverse a downward trend in production and drill for shale gas and deep-water oil deposits.
Pena Nieto's centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) joined forces with their historical rivals, the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN), to draft the reform.
"Our energy model is exhausted," said PAN deputy Juan Bueno Torio, noting that Mexico imports 51 percent of its gasoline and 75 percent of petrochemicals.
"Transforming our energy sector is urgent," he warned.
Oil output has dropped from 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004 to 2.5 million today.
The reform would let private firms explore and extract oil and gas, as well as share profits, production and risk with Pemex, ending a ban cemented in Mexico's constitution.
The left, led by the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), has called for a referendum on the reform, arguing that it amounts to a privatization of the oil sector and a give-away to US companies.
Lawmakers voted one by one by voice following a rowdy session held in an auditorium because two-dozen leftist lawmakers had padlocked themselves inside the 500-seat chamber of deputies.
The lower house had given general approval to the legislation in a 354 to 134 vote late Wednesday and then proceeded to reject a series of objections raised by the left in an all-night debate.
The debate took an unusual turn when Antonio Garcia Conejo of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) took to the podium before dawn.
Garcia shed his suit and tie and stood in his black underwear as he accused the ruling party of having "stripped down the nation" with past privatizations of telecommunications.
Mexican media said two lawmakers, leftist lawmaker Karen Quiroga and PRI deputy Landy Berzunza, had scuffled during the session.
Analysts say the bill goes further than Pena Nieto's original proposal, with production-sharing contracts and licensing schemes.
But the reform still falls short of more controversial concessions.
"Today is a dark day in the history of Mexico," said deputy Ricardo Monreal of the left-wing Citizen Movement party.
But Pena Nieto denies Pemex will be privatized and insists the oil will remain in the nation's hands.
The president had said after Wednesday's Senate vote that the reform would allow the country to "make the most of its resources to grow economically and create jobs in the coming years."
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