[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 87 (Friday, July 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 INTRODUCTION OF THE FAIR INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS IN TRADE ACT OF 1994

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                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 30, 1994

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am today joined by a very distinguished 
group of my colleagues to introduce a very important bill--the Fair 
International Standards in Trade [FIST] Act of 1994--to change how our 
Nation goes about negotiating any future trade agreements and what must 
be contained in those agreements.
  Last month, I was one of 36 Members of Congress who wrote to 
President Clinton to underscore our view that we have entered a new era 
in which any future trade agreements that seek to expand international 
trade and to eliminate unfair trade practices must also include strong, 
enforceable provisions to promote international respect for fundamental 
worker rights, environmental standards, and sustainable development. 
Specifically, our letter urged the President to take three actions:
  One. Not to seek reauthorization of the Generalized System of 
Preferences [GSP] Program as an add-on provision to the impending 
Uruguay Round-GATT implementation bill;
  Two. Not to seek an extension of new trade negotiating authority and 
fast-track procedures as an add-on provision to the aforementioned GATT 
implementation bill; and
  Three. If No. 2 is disregarded, to couple any request for new trade 
negotiating authority with a binding requirement that any future trade 
agreements must include enforceable worker rights and environmental 
standards within the terms of those agreements. The text of that letter 
and its cosigners is included with this statement.
  I regret to say that the Clinton administration has turned a deaf ear 
to all three of our appeals. They are, indeed, pushing behind the 
scenes for a 10-year reauthorization of the GSP Program and a 7-year 
blank check extension of new trade negotiating authority and fast-track 
procedures to be tacked on to the GATT implementation bill--a bill of 
several thousand pages--that is moving through the House Ways and Means 
and Senate Finance Committees at breakneck speed.
  The only crumb the Clinton administration has thrown to us is a 
provision in their request for a 7-year extension of trade negotiating 
authority and fast-track procedures that would make worker rights and 
environmental standards a negotiating objective for possible future 
agreements.
  But we will not be deterr by this largely empty gesture. The linkage 
of internationally recognized worker rights and labor standards has 
been a principal U.S. negotiating objective in multilateral trade 
negotiations in one form or another that has been included in U.S. 
trade law since 1974. Sadly, U.S. trade negotiators, across Democratic 
and Republican administrations alike, have failed miserably on this 
score, yet asked the Congress to approve several major international 
trade agreements anyway. This latest open-ended, vague pledge by the 
U.S. Trade Representative [USTR] does not ensure that our legitimate 
trade-related worker rights and environmental concerns will be 
seriously redressed within the terms of any new trade agreement.
  Hence, the time has come for the Congress to require by law that 
enforceable worker rights and environmental standards be included 
within the terms of any new trade agreement before the President of the 
United States enters into and commits our country to approval of that 
agreement. That is precisely what the bill I am introducing today does.
  This bill prohibits the President from entering into any new trade 
agreement that does not contain provisions that require each signatory 
country to the agreement to:
  One. Adopt and enforce laws to afford internationally recognized 
worker rights in that country;
  Two. Adopt and enforce laws to promote respect for internationally 
recognized environmental standards in that country; and
  Three. Treat as an actionable unfair trade practice, backed by 
potential sanctions, the systematic denial or practical nullification 
of internationally recognized worker rights and environmental standards 
as a means for any signatory country to seek to gain a competitive 
advantage in international trade.
  To his credit, President Clinton has stated on several occasions he 
has committed his administration to promoting respect for the 
environment and worker rights as essential building blocks for 
expanding international trade and rekindling growth in the global 
economy for the rest of the 1990's and beyond.
  This bill should help him follow through on those very important 
commitments. It reflects a growing outcry inside and outside the 
Congress, at home and abroad, that global economic integration must be 
structured in law and practice to benefit working people as well as 
consumers, business, and entrepreneurs and to protect our shared 
natural environment.

                                Congress of the United States,

                                      Washington, DC, May 9, 1994.
     Hon. William J. Clinton,
     President of the United States of America, The White House, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We heartily applaud your official 
     statement in January in Brussels in which you reaffirmed your 
     prior policy commitments to promoting respect for the 
     environment and worker rights as essential building blocks 
     for expanding international trade and rekindling growth in 
     the global economy.
       In keeping with your policy pronouncements, we are writing 
     to underscore our view that we have entered a new era in 
     which any future trade agreements that seek to expand 
     international trade and to eliminate unreasonable and unfair 
     trade practices must also include strong, enforceable 
     provisions to promote international respect for fundamental 
     environmental standards, worker rights, and sustainable 
     development.
       Some of us voted for implementation of the North American 
     Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), while others of us voted 
     against it. We may also differ among ourselves when the time 
     comes for us to vote on the legislation to implement the 
     results of Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs 
     and Trade (GATT).
       But we all share a common belief that it is in keeping with 
     both the U.S. national economic interest and a better world 
     to work for a more sustainable integration of the global 
     economy which benefits the most people, not just a 
     comparative few, and helps protect the environment. To 
     accomplish this, we believe that any future trade or 
     investment agreements to which the U.S. becomes a party 
     (whether multilateral, regional, or bilateral) must include 
     binding provisions within the terms of the agreements 
     themselves, which assure the adoption, implementation, and 
     enforcement of fundamental environmental safeguards and 
     worker rights within each of the countries party to such 
     agreements.
       In the 1990s and beyond, increased levels of trade, 
     investment and international economic interdependence result 
     in the economic conditions in one national economy being felt 
     more quickly and sharply in other national economies. Through 
     the negotiation of agreements such as the Montreal Protocol, 
     the U.S. and the rest of the international community have 
     also recognized that the activities of individual nations can 
     have profound environmental consequences that extend beyond 
     national borders. The expansion of international trade, in 
     theory, still presumes to promote the security and living 
     standards of all the world's people and to safeguard our 
     common environment. Yet there is a growing realization that, 
     in practice, trade can have the opposite effect in many 
     instances, despoiling the environment and undermining working 
     and living standards for many people in both developing and 
     developed countries.
       For example, the GATT and the NAFTA spell out rules with 
     regard to capital subsidies, dumping, and intellectual 
     property rights to promote fair competition in world trade, 
     but ignore the relevance of the conditions under which 
     exports are produced and services rendered to the promotion 
     of fair competition in world trade. No country's comparative 
     advantage should be based upon the degradation of that 
     country's natural resources and the environment, failure to 
     protect the global commons, or the systematic exploitation of 
     its workers. While the NAFTA tangentially breaks some new 
     ground in dealing with the environment, and to a lesser 
     extent worker rights, there still are no trade rules or 
     disincentives to deter any trading nation from seeking 
     competitive advantage by despoiling its environment or 
     brutalizing its workforce. These shortcomings display 
     outdated reasoning and skewed priorities rather than common 
     logic and understanding of how the global marketplace 
     operates in the real world.
       In the post-NAFTA climate on Capitol Hill, it will probably 
     be necessary to enhance and institutionalize consideration of 
     environmental and worker rights concerns in U.S. negotiating 
     objectives and trade laws in order to forge broad 
     congressional support for future trade agreements.
       In fact, comprehensive, generic legislation to link 
     environmental safeguards and worker rights to the conduct of 
     U.S. trade policy is certain to be introduced this year. Such 
     legislation should send a clear message to our trading 
     partners that we are serious about protecting the 
     environmental and worker rights at the same time we pursue 
     further trade liberalization and greater competitiveness.
       Such legislation should send a clear message to our trading 
     partners that we are serious about protecting the environment 
     and workers rights at the same time we pursue further trade 
     liberalization and greater competitiveness.
       In the meantime, we have identified three options we urge 
     you to embrace at this time.
       First, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) will 
     expire in September unless re-authorized. We urge that 
     respect for fundamental environmental standards be added to 
     the mandatory eligibility criteria to be met in order for a 
     developing country to be eligible for GSP trade preferences 
     and duty-free access to the U.S. market. Also the worker 
     rights provisions that were added to that law in 1984, and 
     that have already proven very useful in persuading GSP 
     beneficiary countries to improve their national worker rights 
     laws and practices, need to be strengthened.
       We want to work closely with you and take whatever time is 
     needed to agree upon strong environmental and worker rights 
     provisions to be included in any GSP re-authorization bill. 
     Accordingly, we urge that you not seek a simple re-
     authorization of the GSP program as an ``add-on'' provision 
     to a Uruguay Round GATT implementation bill that may be 
     submitted to the Congress as soon as this spring.
       Second, we anticipate that you will soon request the 
     extension of trade negotiating authority to pursue new trade 
     agreements and to request that ``fast-track procedures'' 
     apply to congressional consideration of the implementing 
     bills of any resulting agreements. We learned during the 
     NAFTA negotiations and the debate leading up to the vote on 
     its implementation that many members of Congress have many 
     questions and unresolved concerns about future use of ``fast-
     track procedures.'' Accordingly, we again urge that you not 
     request any extension of your trade negotiating authority and 
     ``fast-track procedures'' within the provisions of the 
     forthcoming GATT implementation bill. Such a request is so 
     important that we should debate it on its own terms as a 
     separate bill.
       Third, when you seek such an extension, we urge that you 
     couple your request with a proposed requirement that any 
     future trade agreement and its implementing legislation must 
     include binding provisions within the terms of that agreement 
     and implementing legislation, which assure the adoption, 
     implementation, and enforcement of fundamental environmental 
     safeguards and worker rights within each of the signatory 
     countries if it is to be considered under ``fast-track 
     procedures'' in the Congress.
       We hope you will agree that what is urgently needed is a 
     broader vision, new policies, and new trade agreements which 
     reflect the fact that trade is not an end in itself. Fair 
     competition in world trade should renounce and discourage the 
     wanton destruction of the environment and systematic labor 
     repression. U.S. leadership should hasten the day when world 
     trade is structured under explicit rules and in practice to 
     enhance environmental protection and to improve worker and 
     living standards everywhere.
       Mr. President, you have often spoken quite eloquently of 
     our country's need to embrace economic change and to seize 
     the historic opportunity at hand to exercise American 
     leadership within the community of nations to open a new era 
     of expanding international trade and secure investment. At 
     the same time, together we can help awaken the world to the 
     reality that trade is not an end in itself, but rather a very 
     important means to a brighter, more equitable, and 
     environmentally sustainable future for all of the world's 
     people.
       We look forward to working with you and officials of your 
     administration on these and other approaches that are 
     responsive to these broader, trade-related concerns that 
     affect all of us.
           Sincerely yours,
         Jolene Unsoeld, Barney Frank, George Miller, John J. 
           LaFalce, Helen Delich Bentley, Doug Applegate, George 
           E. Brown, Jr., Dick Durbin, Bernard Sanders, Esteban E. 
           Torres, Sidney R. Yates, Eric Fingerhut. David E. 
           Bonior, Ron Dellums, Peter DeFazio, Bobby L. Rush, 
           Austin J. Murphy, John Spratt, Jr., Lane Evans, Marcy 
           Kaptur, Patsy T. Mink, Melvin L. Watt, Bob Filner, 
           Elizabeth Furse.
         Tom Barlow, Don Edwards, Leslie Byrne, Lynn Schenk, Dick 
           Swett, Jerrold Nadler, Sherrod Brown, Louis Stokes, 
           Nydia Velazquez, James Traficant, Neil Abercrombie, Tim 
           Holden.

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