Guest columnist
Fast-track trade bill a public-policy disaster

By Michael Ramos, Sally Soriano, Steve Williamson and Kathleen Casey
Special to The Times

E-mail this article Print this article Search web archive

In the middle of the night, at 3:30 a.m. Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives made a mockery of its own authority and responsibility to the democratic process. Waiving rules that require adequate time to carefully deliberate over complex legislation, the Republican leadership rammed through the fast-track trade-promotion bill, only a few hours after making the 300-plus pages of legislation available to House members and the public.

How could an accurate analysis of this bill take place in such a short time? Reps. Adam Smith and Rick Larsen, Democrats from the local 9th and 2nd congressional districts, voted for the legislation anyway. It passed by just three votes (215-212).

Why the rush? President Bush and his corporate allies (Business Roundtable, National Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and individual companies such as Microsoft) realized they couldn't get their fast-track bill passed if representatives had to answer constituent questions about the bill's content during the August recess.

The Founding Fathers knew that trade is fundamentally a domestic issue, profoundly affecting our domestic life as a nation. So the U.S. Constitution gives the power to negotiate trade agreements to Congress. When Congress authorizes fast track, they hand over this authority to the president.

Under fast track, Congress can only give a final "thumbs up or down" on trade agreements, without the opportunity to fix provisions that might harm important public interests. At one time, this ban on amendments might have been necessary to prevent packages of tariff reductions from getting pulled apart. But today, trade policy goes much further, setting sharp limits on the authority of federal, state and local governments to regulate in the public interest.

Under these circumstances, it is a dereliction of responsibility for our representatives to give up their power to amend trade agreements. Indeed, this fast-track bill contains the seeds of a public-policy disaster. For instance, it specifically authorizes expansion of the corporate lawsuit provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These provisions empower foreign corporations to sue the federal government if a local, state or federal law interferes with their corporate profits.

Already, the Methanex Corporation of Canada has used these NAFTA rules to challenge California's phase-out of a toxic fuel additive called MTBE that has badly polluted drinking water supplies, and is demanding damages of $1 billion for lost profits.

Mexico and Canada have already lost similar challenges to environmental health laws, and paid the required millions of dollars in damages to corporations. If Methanex wins its lawsuit against California's MTBE phase-out, the federal government has power under NAFTA to step in and order Washington and a dozen other states to rescind their own phase-outs of this dangerous chemical.

Another serious problem with this fast track bill: It guts enforcement of labor rights. Until trade agreements require corporations, regardless of where they do business, to respect basic worker rights, like freedom to organize and freedom from slavery, places such as Washington state will continue to hemorrhage jobs. Boeing is slowly exiting Washington in search of cheap labor, and the software industry has rushed to outsource jobs to subsistence-wage countries.

Trade agreements, which now enforce numerous corporate privileges such as copyrights on pop music CDs, should also be required to enforce basic workers' rights.

But instead of any meaningful labor standards, this fast-track bill offers workers a limited assistance package for those who can prove job loss due to trade. It doesn't cover contract workers (such as the "perma-temps" that make up over 40 percent of the high-tech industry) or workers who lose their jobs because their factory moves overseas. This token "aid" package is no substitute for trade policy that actually works for working families.

Rep. Ana Eshoo, D-Calif., a major sponsor of the original workers' assistance package, realized that in its new form it was a fig leaf for votes, rather than a real effort to help displaced workers. She voted against fast track.

Mounting revelations of corporate fraud should alert citizens and legislators to rethink the way the corporate-driven trade agreements of the 1990s are contributing to the global economic downturn. These revelations call for trade agreements that respect three basic tenets of our democracy: first, the right of citizens to participate when the terms of trade are being debated; second, a total commitment on the part of legislators to curtail the ability of corporations to overrule democratically enacted laws; third, the right to protection of both our global environment and our constitutionally guaranteed rights as workers and citizens.

Now, Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have the opportunity to thoroughly analyze and oppose this fast-track bill.

Washington state and the people of this country cannot afford fast track. The blatantly undemocratic process that allowed it to pass in the House should be reason enough for Cantwell and Murray to oppose it. Let's hope they have the courage to do so.

Michael Ramos is program associate with the Washington Association of Churches. Sally Soriano is coordinator of People for Fair Trade. Steve Williamson is executive secretary-treasurer of the King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Kathleen Casey is regional representative of the Sierra Club Northwest.