[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16507-16508]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




       CAFTA PUTS U.S. SOVEREIGNTY AND CONSTITUTION UNDER ATTACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OTTER. Mr. Speaker, I join the three previous speakers tonight, 
and I rise today in the urgent interest of America's sovereignty and 
the primacy of our laws and the Constitution. They are under attack, 
Mr. Speaker, by the Central American Free Trade Agreement that will 
soon be considered by this Chamber.
  In fact, even referring to CAFTA as a ``trade agreement'' is a 
misnomer. Yes, it involves trade; but its influence on our economy, our 
legal system, and our way of life would be much more serious and 
sweeping than the benign term ``trade agreement'' suggests.
  At its core, CAFTA is a document that uses more than 1,000 pages of 
the international vernacular of diplomacy to cede the right of the 
American people to be governed by their representatives that they elect 
according to the laws of their land and under the legal system 
established by their Constitution.
  Specifically, CAFTA brazenly requires the executive branch of the 
United States Government, as well as this Congress, our State 
Governors, State legislators, and even local authorities to conform all 
existing and future Federal, State, and local laws to a new set of 
international statutes and standards that go beyond trade matters. Make 
no mistake: only one thing would be worse than approving and living 
under CAFTA, and that would be to approve it and then find ourselves 
unwilling to comply with its provisions, which demonstrably contravene 
every principle of Federalism that is at the basis of our form of 
government.
  Such exercises of sovereign authority on the part of the United 
States Government on behalf of the American people we are entrusted to 
represent could subject our policies, our laws, our court judgments, 
and even our land to the will of an international tribunal empowered to 
impose the trade sanctions for our intransigence.
  This is not a matter of opinion, Mr. Speaker. It is a matter of fact. 
Precedents established by judgments rendered under NAFTA-related cases 
leave

[[Page 16508]]

no room for doubt that CAFTA will open us to all forms of statutory 
globalization that is singularly not in the best interests of the 
United States.
  Let me be more blunt. Requiring U.S. domestic laws to conform to the 
extensive nontrade provisions in CAFTA is a direct violation of the 
Constitution as well as an abuse of trust placed in this government by 
the people of the United States. This is an intrusion upon the 
sovereign rights of the duly elected representatives in Federal, State, 
and local positions. But more importantly, it is nothing short of an 
abdication of the rights of those who elected us.
  Let us look at some specifics. Under CAFTA, a tribunal empowered to 
resolve a dispute would be made up of judges from three countries; two 
countries, one each, representing those in the dispute, as well as a 
judge from a third country from the CAFTA trade agreement. Now, no 
matter how you do the math, it adds up to one voice for the United 
States against two judges from Central American countries without the 
tradition of constitutional jurisprudence or democracy of which we are 
justifiably proud. Those odds simply are unacceptable.
  Beyond the CAFTA tribunal, this agreement would submit the United 
States to an even greater degree of unreasonable and unwarranted 
offshore jurisdictional control in the guise of the United Nations and 
the World Bank. CAFTA would empower them to order payments of U.S. tax 
dollars to foreign investors who claim that the U.S. business laws and 
regulations are too strict by international standards. Neither our 
Constitution nor our courts have ever legitimately contemplated such a 
circumstance and to do so now would be, once again, entirely 
unacceptable.
  U.S. businesses already must marshal all the ingenuity and 
technological advantages that they can to compete in the global 
marketplace. In addition, they are subject to severe and growing 
regulatory burdens placed on them by our own country's laws. Under 
CAFTA, they will find themselves at even greater disadvantage to 
foreign investors. The United States will only be a good place to do 
business if you are not from the United States. Our own businesses and 
entrepreneurs, our economic warriors will be stripped of their weaponry 
and sent to fight in a losing battle without protection.
  These prospects terrify me. And, yet, we have heard talk lately from 
some who do not find any of this to be a matter of concern. They say 
that CAFTA's implementing language would do nothing to change current 
U.S. law. To believe that you would have to be looking at CAFTA with 
blinders on, unable or unwilling to see beyond today and into the 
potential effects years down the road. While today's laws may be safe, 
all future laws intended to protect America and their interests are 
indeed in jeopardy.
  All this might sound a bit farfetched and overly dramatic. 
Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of times when they have been 
forced to change our laws and our ways of doing business after 
submitting to the authority of an international court.
  For example, under NAFTA, a tribunal similar to the one proposed in 
CAFTA ordered the United States to allow Mexican trucks to operate 
throughout the United States because NAFTA included the right of 
foreign transportation firms to operate in our country. We in Congress 
have regularly expressed our concern about the considerable safety 
problems associated with Mexican trucks that do not meet the U.S. 
safety requirements.
  In addition, just last year Congress had to pass legislation 
repealing U.S. tax laws because the World Trade Organization decided 
that they were not in accordance with international policy. Changes to 
our tax policy should be based on our own laws and our own practices, 
not forced upon us by the whims and biases of international tribunals.
  I am a strong believer in free and fair trade, and I believe that 
developing good trade policies will benefit U.S. farmers and 
manufacturers. But I cannot support new trade agreements if we do not 
maintain an effort to enforce existing agreements. Ineffective, uneven 
enforcement of NAFTA has led to existing tensions between the United 
States and the Canadian beef, potato and softwood lumber industries, as 
well as the Mexican bean and sugar beet industries, significantly 
affecting producers in my State. While we refuse to take other 
countries to task over their exploitations of NAFTA, we allow our own 
sovereignty to be continually assaulted by the NAFTA tribunal.
  Having worked as an Idaho businessman for most of my life, I know 
that exporters in my State can compete and win on a level playing 
field; however, NAFTA has become a double-edged sword being used to 
undermine and ultimately destroy industry and jobs in my State. Rather 
than fixing old problems, CAFTA merely adds insult to injury by 
continuing this downward spiral toward a complete loss of U.S. 
sovereignty.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I just would say that once again, there are 
many numerous opportunities for us to take a look at how we have been 
disadvantaged under NAFTA; and CAFTA, as has been said before, is just 
an ugly relative of NAFTA.

                          ____________________