In 2025 the Supreme Court annulled at least 17 municipal revenue laws with charges on power plants, substations and gas; in 2026 two more municipalities included the same charges
Translated from the Spanish original.
On October 28 and 29, 2026, the DOF (Mexico's federal gazette) published two Supreme Court rulings against 2026 municipal revenue laws, both brought by the Federal Executive: constitutional controversy 178/2026 (a suit between levels or branches of government), decided on August 4, annulled the charges of Zaragoza, San Luis Potosí, for land-use licenses on electrical substations, transformers, high-voltage lines, generating facilities and railways; 85/2026, decided on July 6, annulled those of Jiménez, Coahuila, on power plants and hydrocarbon facilities. The two rulings cite as precedents at least 17 controversies decided between September 17 and December 8, 2025 against identical charges in that year's revenue laws: 14 from municipalities in Coahuila, two from Chihuahua and one from Zacatecas; the Jiménez ruling also cites 31 controversies from 2024 against charges by Coahuila municipalities on hydrocarbon well permits. The Court holds that municipal powers under article 115 (the constitutional article on municipalities) over land use and licenses "are not absolute" and do not extend to the "authorization, regulation or specific charge" on that infrastructure. In the Zaragoza case, the congress and government of San Luis Potosí defended the charge as a municipal service; the Senate and the Cámara de Diputados (lower house of Congress), as interested third parties, asked that the Executive's claim be declared well-founded.
Strategic interpretation
Systemic: The energy network is multiplying on municipal land—solar parks, gas pipelines, substations—and the Supreme Court rules, case by case, that the municipality can neither authorize it nor charge it like any other construction: since 2024 for hydrocarbon wells and since September 2025 for power generation, with 17 cases in under three months. The other half of the tension: municipalities write the charge back into their revenue laws every December. The poles: territorial control under constitutional article 115 and federal exclusivity over energy. The developer and the CFE (state power utility) win, sparing themselves a permit and a charge; rural municipal finances lose, bearing the local impact without revenue of their own. Consequence: It falls to municipalities in Coahuila, Chihuahua, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí where power plants, gas pipelines and substations go in, to the state congresses that approve their revenue laws, to the Consejería Jurídica del Ejecutivo (presidential legal office), which litigates every year, and to generation developers. What follows: the municipality stops being a party to deciding where infrastructure goes and is left a spectator bearing the local cost. From that it follows that territorial compensation will have to be invented another way—a state levy, a compensation fund, a deal with the developer—or it will be settled as local opposition on site, the costliest route for everyone. Worldview: That strategic infrastructure is a national matter that passes through the territory without belonging to it. What to watch: How many 2027 municipal revenue laws again include these charges in December 2026 and how many constitutional controversies the Executive files; whether any state creates a levy or compensation fund for energy infrastructure; whether electricity regulation sets a municipal share; and, in 3 to 10 years, whether conflicts over siting parks and substations move from the courts to local opposition.
Diario Oficial de la Federación (DOF, Mexico's federal gazette), October 28, 2026 (constitutional controversy 178/2026, Zaragoza, San Luis Potosí) and October 29, 2026 (constitutional controversy 85/2026, Jiménez, Coahuila, code 5802477). Both rulings opened in the main thread on November 3, 2026; facts, the parties' positions, precedents and votes were read. The count of 17 precedents from 2025 is our own, based on the controversies cited in the two rulings: 34/2025, 44/2025 and 65/2025 in the Zaragoza ruling; 112/2025 and thirteen others from Coahuila in the Jiménez ruling. The Zaragoza ruling also cites 67/2025 from San Luis Potosí, in which invalidating the charge on wind generation gathered only five votes and did not reach a majority: it is not counted.
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Published on November 3, 2026