-Caveat Lector- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 Subj: [RuMills] CANADA INVOKES NAFTA TO SMASH CALIFORNIA http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archive/1999/06/18/MN12059.DTL"> Canadian Firm Sues California Over MTBE $970 million suit seeks to end gas-additive ban This morning's San Francisco Chronicle carried an article about the gas additive MTBE. MTBE is supposed to take the pollution out of the air, at least Carol Browner of the EPA and her appointees tell us that is what it is designed to do. When MTBE was forced on California, no one told us that it would pollute our drinking water with carcinogens. No one told us that pockets of our children, who live near these polluted water wells, would develop a fast growing cancer and die. Now that we have discovered that it is killing our children and destroying our water, Canada is using NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, to force our governor to back down on his ban against MTBE. ISN'T NAFTA GREAT? Because of NAFTA, a business in a foreign country can force us to destroy our land and water because we signed a "treaty" or an agreement, saying we had to accept anything they wanted to trade with us... even if it kills us and our state! People are always talking about building bridges and forming consensus amoung warring factions. It is time for the warring factions of America to come together and get rid of this NAFTA monster that is threatening to destroy us. Divide and conquer is the way our enemies are winning. They keep us fighting each other over abortion, gun control, school prayer, and other equally intense hot buttons. Then while we are doing battle to save our guns, babies and God, they slip in with treaties and agreements that take ALL of our rights away. Our house is burning down. Can Americans stop fighting each other long enough to put out the fire? Once we have saved America for another generation of Americans, then we can go back to being Democrats and Republicans, Christians and Pagans, gun owners and gun haters. But for now, if we don't learn how to ignore the people who are pressing our hot buttons and pulling our strings, our house is going to burn down around us, while we are fighting each other. NAFTA and the Canadian MTBE lawsuit is a point where all Americans who use water can come together in a common cause. Water unites us all. Without pure water, our state and our nation will not survive. MTBE will destroy our water. Without water California cannot grow the food that feeds much of the United States. If NAFTA forces us to continuing using an additive that is killing us, then we must kill NAFTA first. NAFTA is one of the lynchpins of the New World Order. If we can rally enough Americans around MTBE and NAFTA, maybe we can delay the plans the New World Order elitists have in store for us. I have inserted the article, or you can use the weblink to pull it up. Ru Mills, www.rumormillnews.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Canadian Firm Sues California Over MTBE $970 million suit seeks to end gas-additive ban Robert Collier, Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writers Friday, June 18, 1999 --------------------------------------------------------------- Challenging one of California's newest environmental protections, a Canadian corporation has filed suit to overturn the state's ban on the gasoline additive MTBE, calling it a violation of free-trade rules. Less than three months after Governor Gray Davis moved to end the use of MTBE, the Vancouver- based Methanex Corp. announced Tuesday that it is using the North American Free Trade Agreement to seek $970 million in compensation for lost profits. The challenge under NAFTA's little-known "investor rights" provisions packs a big legal punch. A similar lawsuit filed last year by a U.S. company forced Canada to overturn its ban on a gasoline additive that has been implicated in health problems. Other NAFTA suits are under way in the United States and Canada, seeking to overturn a wide variety of government regulations. Consumer and environmentalist groups warn that big business may be able to use NAFTA to gut decades of progressive legislation. "This is what 'free trade' is all about -- corporations overruling the decisions made by citizens at the ballot box and the legislative process," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a Washington-based lobbying group that has fought NAFTA. "Methanex is using NAFTA to override the governor, state Senate and people of California," she said. In papers filed with the U.S. State Department, the company said California's ban on MTBE unfairly restricts the company's ability to sell methanol -- a key ingredient in MTBE -- and profit from its sale in the state. The company says this constitutes a violation of NAFTA. MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, makes gasoline burn more efficiently and cleanly, and it has been used in most California cars since 1996 as part of the state's strategy to meet federal clean-air requirements. However, the additive, a possible carcinogen, has been implicated in recent years as a major source of contamination of both reservoirs and groundwater. And air quality officials have concluded that the clean-air goals can be met without it. Governor Davis' March 25 announcement that MTBE will be phased out by the end of 2002 will cause the company to lose $970 million in methanol sales over the next 20 years, said Pierre Choquette, CQ Methanex's president and chief executive officer. Six percent of world methanol sales occur in California, and Methanex is the world's largest methanol producer. Under NAFTA's vaguely written investor rights provisions, companies are entitled to compensation for "expropriation" -- which may be interpreted as any government action, including health and safety regulations, that has the effect of reducing a company's profits. "Our claim is related to expropriation," Choquette said. "NAFTA requires that an expropriating party meet certain obligations, including fair and equitable treatment and the payment of compensation, which California did not meet." Daniel Seligman, a Sierra Club trade policy specialist, said the suit has ominous implications for North American environmental regulations "because the language of the provisions are so sweeping. Under NAFTA, this is an open and shut case in favor of the company. NAFTA states that any regulation tantamount to expropriation justifies a compensation." Under the NAFTA dispute process, lawyers for Methanex and the U.S. federal government will have two months to reach a settlement. If they fail to do so, the issue will go to binding arbitration by a three-person international panel agreed to by both sides. Although the panel does not have the power to directly overthrow state or federal laws, it can levy heavy fines -- thus providing strong pressure for the revocation of the offending law. Last year, a similar NAFTA lawsuit caused Canada to overturn its ban on MMT, a fuel additive that was blamed for neurological maladies. The ban was challenged by the Richmond, Va.-based Ethyl Corp. because it "expropriated" future profits and damaged Ethyl's "good reputation." Rather than pay $251 million in damages, Canada overturned its ban and paid Ethyl $13 million. Michael Bustamante, a spokesman for the governor, said he had not seen a letter that Methanex said it sent to Davis earlier this week. "The governor's decision on MTBE was good for the people and environment of California," Bustamante said. "He weighed all the issues, considered all the comments and gave companies sufficient time to phase out the chemical in a nondisruptive fashion." Jim Spagnole, a spokesman for the California Environmental Protection Agency, said the action means little to state regulators at this point. "It all depends on the kind of relief they seek, whether it is injunctive relief or for damages," he said. Right now, many manufacturers are voluntarily choosing not to include MTBE in their gasoline. ©1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page A1 --------------------------------------------------------------- RMNews, The Uncensored National Rumor DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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