[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.

                          ____________________