[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H876-H877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MAJOR RULING IN ENFORCEMENT OF GATT AGAINST UNITED STATES
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hefley). Under a previous order of the
House, the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn] is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the gentleman
that just spoke on the Republicans not wanting to get to a balanced
budget and not negotiating, the very gentleman that spoke voted against
the first balanced budget act this country has seen in 30 years.
Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise to me that the first ruling of the
World Trade Organization in enforcement of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade was against the United States. Many people had
predicted that that would happen if we in fact gave up our sovereignty
to the World Trade Organization as far as our international trade is
concerned.
The World Trade Organization argued that the Clean Air Act, one of
the most important environmental laws that we have, unfairly
discriminated against foreign oil refiners whose fuel cannot meet our
clean air standards. It was predicted that this was going to happen,
but everyone ignored this prediction saying it would not happen. It has
happened now. Everyone said it could not, but it has.
Rather than target the harsh and blatantly protectionist regulatory
regimes of our major competitors, the World Trade Organization has now
predictably chosen to target U.S. environmental laws. This ruling gives
major competitors against the United States a huge bonus while
overturning U.S. laws written to protect the health of our citizens in
one fell swoop.
And as unbelievable as all this sounds, our executive branch of
Government, the President, has not decided whether to appeal this
ruling. It is outrageous. This decision should be appealed immediately
and, further, we should withdraw from the World Trade Organization, and
we should use our contributions to reduce our deficit.
We should give significant and clear consideration to a repudiation
of the last GATT treaty. Congress and the American public have clearly
and consistently supported clean air standards and set an example for
the world of the importance of the clean air environment. Are we now
going to let the World Trade Organization thwart the will of the
American people and overturn American laws? Are we going to let foreign
arbiters of the World Trade Organization now dictate to this Congress,
to the U.S. Congress what laws we can and cannot pass? I for one will
not stand by while foreign judges of the World Trade Organization rule
on the validity of the American environmental and labor laws. I will
not surrender our sovereignty to the World Trade Organization, nor
should we.
American business and manufacturers have invested billions of dollars
in complying with the Clean Air Act. It is not correct, it is not
right, it is not fair for foreign competitors that have not been faced
with the kind of investment
[[Page H877]]
that our businesses have been faced with to import into the United
States to the disadvantage of U.S. companies who have complied with our
laws.
I say that we should not have any special breaks for foreign oil
companies, if they cannot meet our environmental requirements, and that
we should say no to the World Trade Organization or to any foreign
organization telling this government what we will or will not do.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman
for the remarks he just made.
I represent a district that has a very substantial amount of refining
as part of the economic makeup of our district. It has been that way
for many years in northern California. Those refiners, based upon these
Federal laws, have invested billions of dollars in clean fuels projects
at each of these refineries and have had to make that decision. As the
gentleman knows, they were very uneasy about making that decision
because the question was, what would the market be for the gasoline and
would the consumer pay more for these clean fuels. They went ahead and
did that on these assurances.
Now we find out that people who were on the same notice in Venezuela
and elsewhere, they could have made this investment in their refineries
to meet this market but they have chosen instead to go to the World
Trade Organization and to challenge this legislation, to get it
overturned so they can continue to sell a product into the market that
undermines the decisions that this Congress made about the health and
safety of our citizens.
I want to thank the gentleman very much for his remarks. I would join
him. We have tried to get others in the Congress to understand that
this is just the beginning of the assault on a number of environmental
health and safety laws where this Congress has made a determination
about those benefits for the American people that can be undermined by
foreign competitors who want to continue to challenge them as though
they are indirect trade tariffs when in fact they are not. They are
health and safety laws for the benefit of the people of this country.
Mr. COBURN. The other thing that we ought to pay attention to is,
this is the beginning. It is not just going to be on environmental
laws. It is going to be on every other law that this Congress has
passed that the World Trade Organization is going to try to subvert and
undermine the laws that this very Congress passed for the well-being
and benefit of this country.
We should stop it now before it continues, and we should appeal. And
we should force, through a resolution of this Congress, the President
to ask for an appeal of this ruling.
Should we not get that, then we should do the legislatively
responsible thing to reverse our participation in the World Trade
Organization.
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