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[Page: H8894]  GPO's PDF
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   The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. SIMMONS). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. BROWN) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I joined a number of my colleagues from the House and leaders of the most influential environmental groups in the United States to express opposition to so-called Fast Track , granting the President Trade Promotion Authority . The presence of this coalition highlighted quite impressively the solidarity of the environmental community on this critical vote.

   Another thing that underscores the solidarity of the environmental community against the Thomas bill is the stern warning issued by the League of Conservation Voters that it will likely score this vote. The LCV takes its scoring seriously and to ensure balance in its ratings only scores environmental votes for which there is absolute unanimity in the environmental community. The League of Conservation Voters has never before scored a trade vote. That means the environmental community has never been so focused on and so unanimously supportive of and so involved in a trade vote in this country's history.

   Why is there such urgency in the environmental community in opposition to the Thomas Fast Track proposal? Because this bill would do nothing, would do nothing to prevent countries from lowering their environmental standards to gain unfair trade advantages. It would do nothing to require that the environmental provisions be included in the core text of our trade agreements, because it would do nothing to ensure that the environmental provisions in future trade agreements are enforceable by sanctions.

   Instead, it would transfer the burden to consumers and to regulators to prove that the science underlying domestic regulation is beyond dispute, resulting in a downwards harmonization of our environmental laws, a rollback of environmental laws, a weakening of environmental regulation. It would encourage Western companies to build manufacturing plants in countries with the least stringent environmental laws, and, as a result, cost skilled American workers good-paying jobs.

   It would allow future trade agreements to include provisions like NAFTA's chapter 11 , encouraging so-called regulatory tax claims by foreign companies and threatening hard-won democratically enacted laws and regulations that protect our natural resources.

   This investor-state relationship cast by chapter 11 of the North American

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   Think about that for a minute. A country can pass a law that that country's democratically elected legislative body contends, believes, will in fact help the environment and promote public health. A company in another country, a privately owned large corporation in another country, can go to court and sue the government, the democratically elected government, even force that democratically elected government to repeal its environmental law to weaken its public health regulations.

   U.S. Trade Representative Bob Zoellick, a Bush appointee, is committed to including those same anti-consumer, anti-environmental, anti-public health, anti-combat-bioterrorism provisions in Fast Track . Under this provision, not only can laws be overturned, but taxpayers of the subject nation can be liable for damages if a NAFTA tribunal rules that a law or regulation causes an unfair barrier to free trade .

   That sounds pretty outrageous. It makes one incredulous. It sounds like it could not happen, but it actually happened. When Canada passed a law to promote clean air in automobile emissions, Canada's public health community said this is important to fight cancer in Canada. A U.S. company sued Canada in a NAFTA tribunal. The U.S. company won the case against Canada, which had passed a public law protecting the public health. Canada had to repeal its public health law. Canada had to pay this American company $13 million.

   Sometimes it will be against Canada and a democratic law there, sometimes it will be against the United States and a public law here, sometimes against Mexico, France, Germany or wherever.

   I am joined today by my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. STRICKLAND), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. BONIOR). The three of us worked many years ago in opposition to NAFTA, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. BONIOR) in those days, as he has continued to, has led the opposition to these agreements.

   I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. STRICKLAND).

   Mr. STRICKLAND. I would like to say to my friend from Ohio that as I am standing here listening to what

   you are saying, it causes me to think there are some in this Chamber who are willing to relinquish their responsibilities to protect the ability of this country to make sovereign decisions in the best interests of the people that we were elected to represent.

   I mean, to think that we in this body as representatives of the people could come together in a deliberative process, make a decision that we collectively feel is in the best interests of the health and safety of our Nation, and then to have entered into an agreement that would allow a for-profit foreign corporation to bring suit against our government based on their objections to what we think is best for the United States of America, it seems to me if we were to allow that we are relinquishing our constitutional responsibilities.

   Who are we responsible for representing and protecting, some foreign national company, a multinational company with no particular allegiance to any country, any democratic principles, any form of government, but whose bottom line is in fact profit? It just seems almost unbelievable to me that we would ever allow that to happen. It is an unconscionable thing. It is difficult to even contemplate that this government would ever permit that.

   What the gentleman says, I assume, is an accurate interpretation of what the circumstances would be.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Even people that support Trade Promotion Authority acknowledge that that is what that provision does. When it was put into NAFTA in 1993, when this Congress in a very narrow vote passed NAFTA in November of that year, people did not quite understand that provision.

   That provision was sold to the Congress and to the American public. Even though the three of us all voted against NAFTA that are talking this evening, this afternoon, that provision was sold to protect American investors in Mexico where the government might expropriate or take their properties.

   But in fact it is clear that the way that has worked is time after time after time corporations have sued foreign governments, in this case Canada, Mexico, the United States, a corporation in one of the three countries has sued a government in one of the other two, and each time, in almost every case, the government has lost, the government which passed these laws to protect in most cases the public health, sometimes the environment, sometimes consumer protection law, but laws that were passed by those governments were repealed. It is almost so unbelievable that you cannot believe that this Congress would do it.

   Mr. STRICKLAND. I was just thinking very recently, in fact, just a few days ago, we were able to get an amendment in the defense bill that would require that any steel used in the military apparatus that would be purchased with funds in that bill would have to be American-made steel.

   I remember as we were discussing and debating that possibility, there were those who said, well, this would be acceptable, because there is an exemption for these kinds of decisions that relate specifically to national security. But what the gentleman is saying, I believe, is that in most cases there could be a decision made by this House of Representatives, the Senate of the United States, legislation signed into law by the President, and if it was interpreted to be in violation of these trade agreements as providing perhaps protections to our citizens that under the international trade laws would be deemed inappropriate or inconsistent with those laws, that there could actually be legal action taken against our government by a foreign corporation to try to force a change in the domestic law of this land. Is that a correct interpretation?

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. The correct interpretation in this case, it is very possible that a steel company in Mexico or Canada might sue the U.S. Government for passing a provision like that, saying that is an unfair trade practice, and might be able to get the NAFTA tribunal, the three-judge panel, to overturn U.S. law.

[Time: 18:00]

   One of the reasons they do that and one of the reasons these three-judge panels have decided against public health laws, against environmental protections passed by a majority of this House and Senate and signed by the President, or consumer protection or any of those laws, is because of the nature of those three-judge tribunals, those panels. They are made up of trade lawyers, not public health experts, not consumer protection experts, not environmental experts. They are made up of trade lawyers.

   They meet behind closed doors. They do not accept petitions or testimony from third parties, and they then can turn around and repeal a sovereign nation, as we are, as Mexico is, as Canada is. They can repeal a sovereign nation's public health and environmental laws.

   So when we have these panels made up of trade lawyers who typically sit in downtown offices and rule on trade issues and decide the arcane minutia of trade issues but do not have any real expertise or any real interest in environment or public health issues and policy and laws, we lose time after time after time. We have lost public health laws and environmental laws repeatedly in the World Trade Organization with those same secret panels making those decisions. We do not know anything about the proceedings and, all of a sudden, it is in the paper. We get a notice.

   Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. BONIOR).

   Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, to follow up on this very good discussion on sovereignty here, it gets to not only the question of multinational corporations, foreign corporations in the example that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. STRICKLAND) gave, but there is also a taking away of local units of government's power and State units of government's power.

   For instance, we have a particular problem in my State of Michigan with trash, garbage, coming in from Canada. Toronto has decided that it is much easier, more economical, less hassle, to bury all of their waste in Wayne County, Michigan, which is the county the City of Detroit is located in. So they

[Page: H8896]  GPO's PDF

   Now, let us assume that we try to overturn the basic law of this country which says that garbage companies are free to move garbage anywhere they want to vis-a-vis the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution. There was a court ruling that was made in 1992, I believe, on the Fort Gratiot landfill case which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

   If we decided in this institution or the State of Michigan decided in their legislature to say, no, you cannot do that, you cannot bring your garbage and make Michigan a dumping ground, that company or those companies, those trash haulers, those garbage companies could go to court and say, well, wait a minute. This is an impediment on free trade . This is an impediment of moving commerce. And those kinds of panels that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. BROWN) just alluded to could make the decision that what we do here or what they do in the State of Michigan is irrelevant, because it impedes trade .

   Now, there are hundreds of U.S. laws on the environment, as the gentleman pointed out, on food safety, on antitrust, on just laws that deal with people expressing themselves at the local level about a policy on human rights that they may object to, which may be taking place in a regime that is persecuting its people abroad that could be struck down as a result of empowering international panels and taking away the power from this institution, local and State governments.

   So this is real serious stuff, and it goes way beyond just dollars and cents in trade . We are talking, as the gentleman pointed out, about food safety, health care, human rights, antitrust, labor law. You name it. It is all kind of wrapped up here.

   If I could make one other point and then yield back to those who have the time, that is the broader issue here of relinquishing our power as a Nation and as a State and as governments. But the more internal debate to that is what this institution, this U.S. House of Representatives is doing in terms of receding from the powers that the Constitution gives us in Article I, Section 8, which is the power to deal with trade laws. We are handing that over to the executive branch. It is very, very disturbing, the change in the balance of power switching over to the executive branch and to corporate America, basically, here. That is what is going on.

   This may seem a little arcane to people, a little not too clear because of its legalistic implications and language, but I can assure my colleagues that it gets right back down to whether or not we are going to have

   garbage buried in our backyard or out our window, or whether or not we are going to be able to go to the supermarket and get food that we are assured is going to be safe for us to feed our families.

   I mean, it gets down to some really basic things here. We are trying to bring the argument and trying to make the American people see that under the cloak or the disguise of this legalese debate we are having here on ``fast track ,'' that it is going to affect everybody in this country in a dramatic way.

   Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for raising the issue.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, none of the three of us is a lawyer; and we are explaining, in a sense, a legal procedure here that really is pretty simple. It is a question of increasing corporate powers by turning over our sovereignty, turning over our ability to make democratic determinations, whether it is where a community puts its trash, whether it is a food safety law, whether it is a clean air regulation, whether it is a public health program. We are saying in these agreements that we will cede power from a democratic government to a private corporation.

   Mr. Speaker, when we come to this institution, we have seen this kind of corporate power in this institution. There is not much doubt that corporations wield huge amounts of power when we try to pass strong food safety laws, we try to pass good public health laws, clean air laws, bioterrorism laws, protections for our food supply, labor standards, minimum wage. Whenever we try to pass a bill like that, it is always met with huge resistance from the largest corporations in the country, the largest corporations in the world. So we, in many cases, overcome that resistance and do what is right for the public.

   I wear this lapel pin which symbolizes a lot of things to me. It is a canary in a birdcage. One hundred years ago the miners used to take a canary down in the mines in a birdcage, and if the canary died, the miners they had to get out of the mine. It was the only protection they had. The government did nothing to help them.

   In these 100 years, when 100 years ago the average child born in this country could live to be about 47 in terms of the average, in those 100 years this institution has passed minimum wage laws, safe drinking water, pure food laws, Medicare, Social Security, clean air laws, worker protections, mine safety. We have done all of those things against great resistance from the wealthiest, most privileged people in society. We have been able to do that in this institution.

   Now, even when we do that, we are going to see corporations in one country try to overturn the laws we have done. So we passed them with great difficulty against huge campaign contribution dollars and lobbying and all of the special interest groups that fight progressive, good government that helps the public, and then these groups turn around now, these big companies, and they sue democratic governments to stop, to overturn their environmental laws and weaken their food safety laws and hurt their labor laws and try to devastate so many of the protections that we have been able to accomplish as a society, with people pushing their Congress to do the right thing.

   Now some faceless bureaucrats on a trade panel, a NAFTA tribunal can, out of the public light, in a back room, simply wipe away those kinds of environmental laws.

   Mr. BONIOR. And then, Mr. Speaker, go to the lowest standard, go to the lowest standard. That is what they are after. They want to take us back to where we were when people used to take canaries down in a birdcage. They go to the lowest standard, and the lowest standard is often in the developing world.

   It is in countries that are trying to develop a body of law but cannot get there because of the international corporate pressure not to go there, to keep wages low, to keep standards low. They cannot get there because labor unions cannot form because of that same kind of pressure. They cannot get to our standard.

   So because they cannot get to our standards because of institutional pressures within their own country, these corporate entities now have bonded together with them and are trying to bring down our standard here.

   Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. STRICKLAND), we are joined by three other Democrats, and they are the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. PASCRELL); the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. JACKSON-LEE); and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. SOLIS).

   Let me yield to the gentleman from Ohio, and then the rest can join in.

   Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. But I think it is important for those who are listening to us to understand why we are here tonight, and it is because we are going to be called upon tomorrow to cast a vote, and we are going to cast a vote that will protect

   the sovereignty of our Nation, or we will cast a vote that potentially will turn over all the decisionmaking that is important to all of the multiple millions of people that we collectively represent to this three-panel assemblage.

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