U.S. GREEN GROUPS REJECT NWF PLAN TO NEGOTIATE FAST-TRACK DEMANDS
Inside U.S. Trade, Vol. 15, No. 36, September 5, 1997
U.S. GREEN GROUPS REJECT NWF PLAN TO NEGOTIATE FAST-TRACK DEMANDS
A major U.S. environmental organization this week failed to convince
other green groups to enter into a process of negotiating environmental
demands with the Clinton Administration in return for their support for
fast-track negotiating authority. Under a proposal advanced by the National
Wildlife Federation, not all environmental demands would have had to be
addressed in the fast-track legislation, and instead could have been
satisfied m part by other Administration actions.
But other U.S. environmental groups told the NWF during a Sept. 2 phone
conference that they would not join in making specific environmental demands
on the Administration because they do not trust it to deliver on its
promises unless they are included in the fast-track bill itself,
environmental sources said.
As a result, it remains unclear whether NWF on its own will send a
letter outlining specific steps the Administration could take within,
alongside and apart from the fast-back legislation to gain its backing for
the bill, an informed environmental source said. Several other groups which
joined NWF in backing NAFTA in 1993 are now poised to join anti-NAFTA
environmental forces in opposing fast back if, as they expect, the
Administration declines to place environmental objectives on a par with
other overall negotiating objectives in the fast-track legislation.
Six environmental groups, including NWF and the Sierra Club, set tough
standards for the Administration to meet on fast track earlier this year in
a letter to Vice President Al Gore, green sources noted. Among the demands
made in that Feb. 25 letter was a call for incorporating into fast track "a
formal `green' trade negotiating objective which signals that
pro-environment trade policies are indeed a `must'" (Inside US Trade, Feb.
28, p 3). Most environmental groups do not want to sway from their
insistence that the Administration seek those concrete commitments inside a
fast-back bill to advance environmental protection, in spite of requests
from U.S. trade officials in recent weeks that they present more specific
ideas. The groups do not expect the Administration to meet the yardstick
they have advanced, and believe it would be "environmentally irresponsible"
to negotiate narrower, specific commitments or pledges from the
Administration in trade-related areas outside of the binding fast-track
language itself, as NWF had been proposing.
If the Administration pushes ahead with a fast track that does not
measure up to the standard laid out in the letter to Gore, as they expect
will occur, most U.S. environmental groups, including several former NAFTA
backers such as the Defenders of Wildlife, World Wildlife Fund and the
National Audubon Society, expect to push to defeat fast track. This would
send the Administration a message that its failure to pro-actively implement
a trade agenda sensitive to environmental concerns is untenable, according
to environmental sources.
For the past few weeks, though. NWF has sought to build consensus among
key players in the environmental community for the idea of seeking specific
commitments from the Administration, both in the negotiating objectives
included in the fast-track legislation as well as in trade arenas outside
fast track.
Nearly all groups which previously supported NAFTA are disenchanted with
the Administration's subsequent follow-up in overall U.S. trade policy,
environmental sources said. As indications of U.S. inattention with regard
to NAFTA, they noted the absence of Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Carol Browner at the last meeting of the environmental side
accord's main policy-making body. They have also criticized the slow pace of
the new NAFTA-related border institutions, the Border Environment
Cooperation Council (BECC) and the North American Development Bank
(NADBank), in approving border-cleanup projects.
The use of NAFTA investment provisions to challenge domestic
environmental laws has also contributed to groups questioning their previous
support, several green representatives said.
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