[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 15 (Monday, February 5, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E174]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           DISPUTE SETTLEMENT IN THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

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                          HON. PHILIP M. CRANE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, February 1, 1996

  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, the World Trade Organization [WTO] recently 
ruled against the United States in a case involving the Environmental 
Protection Agency's [EPA's] regulations on reformulated gasoline to 
achieve the standards of the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately, this 
decision has been portrayed by some as an assault on U.S. environmental 
laws. Nothing could be further from the truth.
  To begin, it should be pointed out that the case involved an EPA 
regulation, not U.S. law, U.S. air quality standards, as legislated in 
the Clean Air Act, were not at issue. Rather, the case dealt with the 
different set of regulations that are imposed on imports of 
reformulated gasoline from those imposed on domestically refined 
reformulated gasoline. In the WTO, the case was filed under the 
national treatment clause which says that you cannot have one 
regulatory standard for imports and a different one for domestic 
products. This is a principle of trade that the United States, as the 
world's leading exporter, has espoused for years in our efforts to open 
new markets to U.S. goods and services. It works to protect the 
competitiveness of U.S. goods and services overseas by ensuring that 
our trading partners treat our exports in their markets in the same 
manner that they treat their own products.
  I urge my colleagues to carefully study this decision and, more 
importantly, to learn the facts before urging action which would damage 
U.S. credibility in the short term and our trading relationships in the 
long run. Indeed, the United States fought to establish the WTO dispute 
settlement process because of the way it will help us pry open foreign 
markets to our products. Under the old GATT dispute settlement 
procedure, the United States filed the greatest number of cases of any 
member country. However, because countries could block the old dispute 
settlement process, we sometimes could not get decisions in cases that 
would have helped us remove barriers to our exports overseas. The new 
process established in the WTO removes the possibility of such 
obstruction and ensures that the procedure will work on a predictable 
timetable and that a decision will be rendered. Based on our history of 
using the GATT dispute settlement process, the new procedure is likely 
to be used frequently by the United States in the future to help us 
achieve our trade liberalization goals.
  As chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, I am proud 
of the great strides that the United States has made in recent years 
toward opening markets and removing barriers to trade around the world. 
As we work to ensure that our trading partners fulfill their WTO 
commitments, it is critical that we set an example by living up to our 
own.
  In sum, I would like to quote from an editorial from the January 21, 
1996 issue of the New York Times. The editorial, entitled ``Winning, by 
Losing on Trade,'' concludes:

       The ruling helps establish the W.T.O. panels as 
     deliberative judicial bodies willing and able to enforce 
     rules of fair trade. That is beneficial to the United States, 
     which brings more complaints to trade-dispute panels than any 
     other country. Washington will win more than its cases in the 
     years ahead. The W.T.O. has shown it can keep trading honest. 
     That is a welcome development.

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