U.S. GREEN GROUPS REJECT NWF PLAN TO NEGOTIATE FAST-TRACK DEMAN

[MDOLAN <mdolan@citizen.org>]

  We like this story.
  
  Inside U.S. Trade, Vol. 15, No. 36, September 5, 1997
  
  U.S. GREEN GROUPS REJECT NWF PLAN TO NEGOTIATE FAST-TRACK DEMANDS
  
       A major U.S. environmental organization this week failed to convince
  other green groups to enter into a process of negotiating environmental 
  demands with the Clinton Administration in return for their support for 
  fast-track negotiating authority. Under a proposal advanced by the National 
  Wildlife Federation, not all environmental demands would have had to be 
  addressed in the fast-track legislation, and instead could have been 
  satisfied m part by other Administration actions.
       But other U.S. environmental groups told the NWF during a Sept. 2 
  phone conference that they would not join in making specific environmental 
  demands on the Administration because they do not trust it to deliver on 
  its promises unless they are included in the fast-track bill itself, 
  environmental sources said.
       As a result, it remains unclear whether NWF on its own will send a
  letter outlining specific steps the Administration could take within, 
  alongside and apart from the fast-back legislation to gain its backing for 
  the bill, an informed environmental source said. Several other groups which 
  joined NWF in backing NAFTA in 1993 are now poised to join anti-NAFTA 
  environmental forces in opposing fast back if, as they expect, the 
  Administration declines to place environmental objectives on a par with 
  other overall negotiating objectives in the fast-track legislation.
       Six environmental groups, including  NWF and the Sierra Club, set 
  tough standards for the Administration to meet on fast track earlier this 
  year in a letter to Vice President Al Gore, green sources noted. Among the 
  demands made in that Feb. 25 letter was a call for incorporating into fast 
  track "a formal `green' trade negotiating objective which signals that 
  pro-environment trade policies are indeed a `must'" (Inside US Trade, Feb. 
  28, p 3). Most environmental groups do not want to sway from their 
  insistence that the Administration seek those concrete commitments inside a 
  fast-back bill to advance environmental protection, in spite of requests 
  from U.S. trade officials in recent weeks that they present more specific 
  ideas. The groups do not expect the Administration to meet the yardstick 
  they have advanced, and believe it would be "environmentally irresponsible" 
  to negotiate narrower, specific commitments or pledges from the 
  Administration in trade-related areas outside of the binding fast-track 
  language itself, as NWF had been proposing.
       If the Administration pushes ahead with a fast track that does not
  measure up to the standard laid out in the letter to Gore, as they expect 
  will occur, most U.S. environmental groups, including several former NAFTA 
  backers such as the Defenders of Wildlife, World Wildlife Fund and the 
  National Audubon Society, expect to push to defeat fast track. This would 
  send the Administration a message that its failure to pro-actively 
  implement a trade agenda sensitive to environmental concerns is untenable, 
  according to environmental sources.
      For the past few weeks, though. NWF has sought to build consensus among
  key players in the environmental community for the idea of seeking specific 
  commitments from the Administration, both in the negotiating objectives 
  included in the fast-track legislation as well as in trade arenas outside 
  fast track.
  
      Nearly all groups which previously supported NAFTA are disenchanted 
  with the Administration's subsequent follow-up in overall U.S. trade 
  policy, environmental sources said. As indications of U.S. inattention with 
  regard to NAFTA, they noted the absence of Environmental Protection Agency 
  Administrator Carol Browner at the last meeting of the environmental side 
  accord's main policy-making body. They have also criticized the slow pace 
  of the new NAFTA-related border institutions, the Border Environment 
  Cooperation Council (BECC) and the North American Development Bank 
  (NADBank), in approving border-cleanup projects.
      The use of NAFTA investment provisions to challenge domestic
  environmental laws has also contributed to groups questioning their 
  previous support, several green representatives said.
  
  Copyright, Inside U.S. Trade, All Rights Reserved
  ***** NOTES from MDOLAN (MDOLAN @ CITIZEN) at 9/11/97 9:07 AM