Trey Fleisher (tfleishe@carbon.denver.colorado.edu) writes: >Typical Boulder crap. You whiny types scream about the poor and the >third world...... But when something will REALLY help those people >you say you care about -- screw 'um. NAFTA aint perfect but freer markets >and free trade help those poor you care about. GET A CLUE >Trey Fleisher >Dept of Economics Scratch an altruist > Watch a hypocrite bleed!!! > (Boulderite theme!!) > >If you want to talk about the economics of free trade vs. this "Fair" >trade illusion then lets do it OK dude. Let's rock and roll... 11 ENVIRONMENTAL MYTHS NAFTA'S SUPPORTERS HOPE YOU'LL BELIEVE Over 300 US Environmental groups oppose NAFTA because it will fundamentally undermine the ability of our federal and state governments to protect the environment or conserve our natural resources. Because NAFTA's essential goal is to deregulate international trade, and because almost all international trade takes place among corporations, NAFTA will reduce, and in many cases effectively eliminate, the ability of those we elect to regulate corporate activity in the public interest. Our detailed analysis of the 2000 page NAFTA text describes how deregulated trade will undermine efforts to improve environmental and food safety regulation, conserve natural resources, maintain biological diversity, encourage environmental procurement, or promote energy efficiency and conservation. But don't take our word for it, make up your own mind about NAFTA and its impacts. Free trade is too important an issue to leave to others. As most people following the debate about trade and the environment will know, the environmental community is divided in its assessment of the NAFTA. While some important environmental groups are willing to support this trade deal, most are not. Below are some of the arguments being used by these groups, followed by our rebuttals. MYTH #1 - NAFTA protects, and will lead to the strengthening of environmental and food safety standards. The Facts: Not even one minimum environmental standard is required by NAFTA. If a NAFTA country decided to abandon all of its environmental standards the day after the trade deal was implemented, nothing could be done about it. While the NAFTA text includes rhetoric against lowering environmental standards to attract business, it provides no penalty or recourse should NAFTA countries simply ignore this platitude. NAFTA provides extensive and effective enforcement mechanisms for the commercial and corporate rights it creates. Corporations would laugh at the suggestion that their interests be protected by moral platitudes. Environmentalists should be as indignant. MYTH #2 - The environmental side agreements represent victory for environmentalists. The Facts: Several months ago, 24 environmental groups wrote to the Administration setting out those matters that would need to be included in any environmental side agreement to NAFTA. Even by the most modest expectations, the final deal signed by the US, Mexico and Canada would have to be judged a complete failure. While some environmentalists are trying to rationalize their support for NAFTA by claiming the side deal as a victory, if you compare their demands (or even the original US proposals) with the final result, you'll find that the side deal completely ignores most of the issues that they raised. MYTH #3 - NAFTA will do nothing to undermine natural resources conservation initiatives. The Facts: NAFTA strictly prohibits government control over the trade in natural resources. Trade sanctions may be imposed against any government that restricts the export of its unprocessed trees, fish, water or energy resources unless it is rationing the supply of these resources to its own consumers. When critical domestic shortages arise, however, NAFTA guarantees foreign access to a proportional share of those scarce resources in perpetuity, or until they are completely depleted. Conversely, NAFTA provides special protection to governments that use tax dollars to support oil and gas energy mega-projects; government subsidies for energy efficiency and conservation initiatives, on the other hand, are entirely vulnerable to trade challenge and sanctions. MYTH #4 - States will be free to pursue their own environmental and food safety regulations which can readily exceed minimum international or federal standards. The Facts: NAFTA includes absolutely no prohibition against challenging state environmental, pesticide and food safety laws and regulations on the grounds that they violate free trade. Such challenges are becoming increasingly commonplace as corporations take advantage of the powerful tools that trade deals provide for attacking such regulations. The US challenge to the Canadian raw log export ban under the US/Canada Free Trade Agreement, and the Mexican challenge to the Marine Mammal Protection Act under the GATT, are two examples of this. Should state regulation be challenged under NAFTA, the states effected have nor right to notice or participation in the dispute process that NAFTA sets up. It is difficult to defend your laws when you don't even have the right to be present. MYTH #5 - NAFTA cannot overturn our laws - only Congress can change them. The Facts: While this statement is technically true, it flies in the face of the whole purpose of the NAFTA. The goal of this trade agreement is to see that an offending Party brings its laws and rules into conformity with the deal. If it does not do so, trade sanctions can be imposed against it. These sanctions both compensate the aggrieved country and pressure the violator to change its rules. If the US lost such a challenge, Congress would have to choose between violating the intention of the trade agreement in order to keep our laws, or abandoning laws enacted through the democratic process in favor of a trade agreement negotiated in private and without public input or participation. MYTH #6 - The Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC) will have teeth and can impose trade sanctions on governments who fail to enforce environmental laws. The Facts: The CEC will have no authority to even consider the environmental consequences of unsustainable resource policies like forest clear cuts, large scale water diversions, strip mining, energy mega-projects or over-fishing. Under the side deal's definition of an "environmental law", these serious ecological problems are not even considered environmental issues! The CEC's limited enforcement authority can only be invoked long after the damage has already been done and only if a NAFTA country has demonstrated a "persistent pattern of failure... to effectively enforce its environmental law". While meeting the criteria of this definition is hard enough, Article 45 of the side deal opens another huge loophole in the enforcement process. It states that if a party can show its failure to effectively enforce environmental law is the result of a conscious decision to allocate its resources to other environmental matters, then it is not liable for action. Even more problematic is the fact that NAFTA signatories are not required to have environmental laws in the first place. The dispute resolution process can only be triggered if a domestic environmental law exists. MYTH #7 - NAFTA insures that conflicts with existing international environmental agreements will be resolved in favor of the environment. The Facts: NAFTA recognizes three international environmental agreements (IEAs): the Montreal Protocol for ozone protection; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; and the Basil Convention on the control of waste trade. But it does not prohibit a trade challenge to environmental measures, even when they follow the letter of these IEAs. Under international law, countries cannot restrict trade for the purpose of protecting the global environment - like marine mammals or global ecosystems. NAFTA Article 104 reaffirms this by stating that where a dispute arises over a trade issue covered by these IEAs, its resolution must take the path most consistent with the NAFTA regardless of the environmental consequences. MYTH #8 - NAFTA will bring economic prosperity to Mexico and with it, resources and revenues needed to clean up and protect the environment. The Facts: While this claim may sound appealing, it simply does not reflect reality. Free trade with Mexico is not just a theory, it has bee a bitter reality in the maquiladora free trade zones that have been operating along the US - Mexican border for over three decades. If free trade was good for the environment, then the environment in the border region would be the cleanest in Mexico instead of the dirtiest and the most polluted. When corporations are free to pollute, and when they pay little or no taxes for basic water and sewer services for their workers, the result is an environmental disaster. The American Medical Association described pollution in the Mexican free trade zones as a "cess pool and breeding ground for infectious disease". We believe that the AMA's assessment is an accurate indication of what free trade has brought, and will continue to bring, to the people of Mexico. We fear that the NAFTA will simply lead to an acceleration of this disaster. MYTH #9 - NAFTA will generate the funds needed to pay for the costs of cleaning up after free trade in the border region. The Facts: Neither NAFTA nor its environmental side deal commits funds to border clean-up. Billions of dollars will be needed to clean up the environmental disaster zone along the US-Mexico border (the Sierra Club estimated a minimum cost of $20 billion). But the Clinton Administration has refused our calls for a modest cross- border tax to make the polluters pay to clean up the mess they have made. Without such a commitment, it is reasonable to assume that US taxpayers will pick up the check for companies that may have moved to the border region to escape environmental regulation, taxes and decent wage rates. While there has been some talk about the establishment of a "Border Environmental Facility" (BEF), the little we have heard about it is not reassuring. The "BEF" would only cover clean-up of solid waste and sewage. It would not deal with hazardous or toxic wastes, or air pollution. It seems that the money for this facility would come from the federal coffers, begging the question: where in the already strapped budget, would it come from? This focus on the border region also takes away from the problems this agreement will cause in the interior of Mexico and across the US and Canada. We know of no plan that is currently being discussed to address these issues. MYTH #10 - NAFTA represents the greenest trade deal yet and represents a significant improvement over GATT. The Facts: While NAFTA contains some environmental rhetoric you won't find in other trade deals, it will take more than rhetoric and moral platitudes to undo the disastrous effects of the unsustainable pattern of development that NAFTA would entrench. NAFTA goes much farther than GATT (and other trade agreements) in removing the sovereign authority of governments to manage their forests, fisheries, energy and water resources in the interest of future generations. NAFTA's promoters are hoping to take advantage of the mystique that surrounds international trade to entrench environmental and economic policies that are the root cause of our pressing ecological crisis. MYTH #11 - There are no alternatives to NAFTA. The Facts: We need trade agreements that will ensure that trade fosters rather than undermines the goals of sustainable development. We can have trade relationships that encourage environmental regulation and natural resource conservation rather than defeat them. We can negotiate trade deals and resolve trade disputes in ways that are open and democratic, instead of elitist and secretive. We can trade with our neighbors in a way that will improve their future prospects as well as our own, instead of encouraging competition in a race to the bottom of wages, working conditions and environmental regulation. The notion that no alternative exists to NAFTA is a transparent and predictable ploy by those who will profit from its provisions. Over the last two years, fair trade coalitions in Canada, the US and Mexico, have closely studied and discussed the NAFTA and its side agreements. The principles that they have developed for a just and sustainable trade and development initiative for North America illustrate that it is possible to develop a trade agreement based on "mutually beneficial trade, investment and development activities". Material provided by Greenpeace, Public Citizen, Friends of the Earth and the Humane Society of the United States. Boulder Toxics Education Project P.O. Box 4759 Boulder, CO 80306 (303) 581-0774 internet: Brian_Andreja@together.org bandreja@nyx.cs.du.edu