Fast Track Bill ---> Tomorrow!

[MDOLAN <mdolan@citizen.org>]

  The Administration will ask the Congress for "fast track" negotiating 
  authority tomorrow afternoon (Tues, 9/16).  They say they need "fast track" 
  in order to expand NAFTA.  As you all know, the "fast track" grant will be 
  used for additional "free trade" expansion, including ratification of the 
  APEC negotiations (Pacific Rim NAFTA) and the MAI (stealth investment 
  treaty and transnational corporate bill of rights).
  
  I have attached a memo from the Global Trade Watch Director which describes 
  the legislative language we expect.  A key issue is whether the "fast 
  track" bill will include core labor and enforceable environmental 
  standards.  As Lori's memo shows, the Clinton bill will be a retrograde GOP 
  piece of legislation.
  
  So please: call your congressional delegation this week and let them know 
  what you think of NAFTA expansion and of that Legislative Laxative that's 
  Bad for the Constitution -- "fast track."
  
  Here's a toll-free number you can use, goes straight to the Capitol 
  switchboard:
                       ******1-888-723-5246******
  Real good chance we're going to win this vote in the House.  Specially if 
  you take responsibility in your community and lobby your Representative, 
  starting immediately.
                                          /s/ Mike Dolan
  _______________________________________________________
  M E M O R A N D U M
                                    
  TO: CTC Colleagues
  FR: Lori Wallach
  DT: September 9, 1997
  RE: Administration-Archer Dangerous "Directly Related" Fast Track Language
  
  The Administration is planning to float the old Archer-Crane fast track 
  language limiting fast track coverage to matters "directly related to" 
  environment and labor. This is the same proposal offered by Archer and 
  Crane and rejected by the Administration in May 1997. This old proposal 
  will be marketed as if it were a "new" compromise offer on environment and 
  labor.
  
  The GOP language is clever: It puts the "Environment" and "Labor" words 
  into a fast track bill, but actually limits beyond even the status quo what 
  fast track could cover on environment and labor. This is accomplished by 
  restricting fast track coverage only to environment and labor provisions 
  "directly related to trade." 
  
  Under the current fast track language, matters are considered germane and 
  covered by fast track rules if such a matter is "necessary"  or 
  "appropriate" to obtaining a negotiating objective.  The concept of 
  "directly related to" language is to get rid of the potential grey area of 
  "appropriate" which now provides discretion for a President to include 
  human rights, labor, environmental or health issues under fast track if a 
  President so chooses.  
  
  Under the Archer proposal, only those  environmental or labor matters 
  "directly related to" trade would be considered germane for fast track 
  coverage. The "appropriate" language will still provide discretion for 
  truly non-germane matters, like the pork barrel deals that get glued to 
  fast tracked
  trade pacts.
          
  You will also note that the other features of fast track that make it 
  impossible for us or Congress to hold negotiators accountable to any 
  negotiating objectives will not be "fixed" with this proposal. For 
  instance, labor rights have been a core trade negotiating objective since 
  the
  1988 Omnibus Trade Act. Yet, without some leverage in the grant of 
  negotiating authority, it is never achieved in agreements. And, under the 
  status quo fast track Germaneness test, missing items cannot be objected to 
  -- only really out-there extra items that are added in. 
  
  To meet the AFL-CIO resolution requirement of a "fast track with 
  enforceable labor and environment provisions in the core text of a trade 
  pact" the fast track mechanism must be modified somewhat -- such a trade 
  negotiating authority would allow Congress to monitor trade talks and only 
  provide a closed rule (no amendments) if Congress was satisfied with the 
  outcomes.  Conditioning the grant of a no-amendments vote on U.S. 
  negotiators actually
  obtaining certain negotiating objectives would allow Congress to maintain 
  leverage and oversight on the negotiations process. Agreements that failed 
  to meet negotiating objectives under this model would not get the 
  extraordinary closed rule vote.
  
  Translated out of trade lawyerese, the "directly related to" language 
  means:
  
  1. Even the weak, ineffective environmental and labor side agreements in 
  the current NAFTA would not be covered for NAFTA expansion. We know this 
  because Archer said so last spring when he offered this proposal. We know 
  this because the business community opposes the side pacts and supports 
  "directly related to" language.  We also know so because of the face value 
  of the language; Fighting the general societal scourge of child labor or 
  fighting unsafe work
  places or funding border water projects or charging failed domestic 
  environmental enforcement killed birds in a lake in central Mexico is 
  clearly NOT "DIRECTLY" trade related.
  
  2. This language would reaffirm that fast track is appropriate for the 
  existing NAFTA language that DIRECTLY relates to labor and environment.  
  Archer was quite revealing on this point during his 9/7 news conference on 
  the proposal: he noted that this language would allow the U.S. to negotiate 
  and pass under fast track rules the removal of what he called non-tariff
  barriers (and we call domestic laws) in the environmental and labor areas 
  that keep products out of markets. Interestingly, Archer's comments make 
  our core point: today's trade pacts already cover environment and labor, 
  but they do so in an unbalanced way. Already in NAFTA and/or the WTO are 
  rules directly related to deregulating in these areas: Technical Barriers 
  to Trade (aka Environmental Deregulation writ large), the Sanitary and 
  Phytosanitary (aka food  rules weakening safety standards) and the 
  Investment Chapter 11 that makes the "host" government financially liable 
  to reimburse investors in the case of "extended civil strife" (read 
  prolonged strike, property damage by protestors).  The "directly related 
  to" language would allow more of these deregulatory provisions to be 
  negotiated despite our or Congress'
  opposition and then forced into our domestic law through a closed rule 
  before Congress.
  
  Several sources confirm that the Administration has signed off on the 
  Archer "directly related to" language and plan to spin it as a major 
  compromise victory - i.e. "look! they got environment and labor in."  
  Today's Journal of Commerce story, which describes the Administration's 
  agreement to support the "directly related to" language as a "bow" to GOP 
  pressure to keep environmental and labor issues out of trade policy helps 
  counter the expected
  spin. Also: the basic test of what this means is the Archer test. Archer 
  has made brutally clear -- he won't have labor and environment linked to 
  trade. "Directly related to" is his proposal...
  
  This "directly related to" business is a roll back of major proportions 
  from the status quo fast track language, which in itself is totally 
  unacceptable to our organizations. Some of our principles should do 
  preemptively do op-eds or letters blowing up this "directly related to" 
  nonsense before the Administration has a chance to spin it. Either we make 
  them try to defend
  it and try to explain why it is not what it is or otherwise our later 
  attacks may allow them to try to make us look unreasonable because the 
  "words" we want are there.