THE PRESIDENT WILL INTRODUCE FAST TRACK THIS WEEK! he wants the Congress to give him authority to negotiate trade pacts (starting with NAFTA expansion and eventually the MAI) in a way that excludes congressional participation in the process (limited debate, no amendments, up-or-down vote). Call Your Representative or his/her "Trade Staffer" ASAP. CAPITOL SWITCHBOARD******1-888-723-5246 Declare Your Opposition to NAFTA Expansion and "Fast Track" Here's three talking points: 1) NAFTA has created new problems. Our food supply is less safe. Due to the increase in border traffic in meat and produce, more food with dangerous pesticide residues or bacteria is getting to our kitchens. Less than 1 percent of the imports of fruit and vegetables coming from Mexico is inspected at the border. The diminished inspection rates along our border has resulted in an unprecedented flow of illegal drugs. Along our southern border, the drugs and uninspected foods are coming across in over-large, often unsafe trucks, which have increased access to U.S. highways under NAFTA. 2) None of the promises of NAFTA's supporters have been fulfilled. Instead of creating jobs, as the pro-"free trade" corporate lobbyists predicted, NAFTA is responsible for the loss of nearly half-a-million U.S. jobs. Instead of cleaning up the environment along the U.S.-Mexico border, water and air pollution have increased. A massive increase of industries has pushed the border ecology to the breaking point. 3) "Fast track" authority for the President is unnecessary and outdated. The Administration regularly brags that they have completed over 200 trade agreements -- but never mentions that only two (NAFTA and GATT) -- needed "fast track." It made more sense when Nixon created it to deal with the Japanese on bilateral, sector-intensive (e.g., autos, steel) issues. But today, so many issues -- labor rights, environmental protection, food safety -- are tied up in these multilateral deals, Congress should take a more meaningful, balanced role in the formulation of our trade policy. The delegation of congressional authority to regulate foreign commerce, and craft and ratify treaties, is illogical in the global economy. Under "fast track," Congress abdicates to the President its power to thoroughly review or fix bad trade deals. *******Instead of EXPANDING NAFTA we should be FIXING IT!******* At Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, we know that when you're headed in the wrong direction, a fast-track is the last thing you need. That number again: 1-888-723-5246 It is urgent that you call your congress member this week. Keep calling until s/he or the Trade L.A. (legislative aide) writes down your name and address in the district and allows you to make all three of the important foregoing points. AND you must get others to do this too. Please distribute widely. ************************************************************************** /s/ Mike Dolan, Field Director, Global Trade Watch, Public Citizen Join the Global Trade Watch list server. We will keep you up to date on trade policy and politics. To subscribe, send this message: "SUBSCRIBE TW-LIST" [followed by your name, your organizational affiliation and the state in which you live] to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Then check out our web-site ---> www.citizen.org/pctrade ------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAST TRAK UPDATE FROM LABR.PARTY NEWSGROUP I'm glad to see interest in this topic. A quick summary of what I know about what's happening: Clinton introduces "fast-track" legislation on Sept 10, along with a dog-and-pony show. This legislation gives the White House authority to negotiate new trade agreements similar to NAFTA but not part of NAFTA per se, and ram them through Congress with little or no opportunity for legislators or the public to digest and react to the contents. As things stand, a large majority of Democrats in Congress (2/3rds or so) will oppose this legislation, including Reps Gephardt and Bonior in the House. It can only pass with Republican support. The price for this support, which Clinton will gladly pay, is the exclusion of any possibility of labor and/or environmental standards in the trade agreements. The AFL-CIO is engineering various events but little or nothing in the way of demonstrations. An exception is a rally in front of the White House Wednesday led by the Teamsters and including George Becker and Ralph Nader (10 a.m. to 11 a.m.). This is the only demo scheduled at the moment. There is a teach-in on Capitol Hill Thursday (1 pm to 3pm) with Members of Congress and labor leaders will speak. UNITE is planning some kind of outdoor 'Peoples' Hearing' Thursday at the Capitol. The AFL will be running advertisements around the country, targeted at specific Members of Congress. In sum, there is a fair amount going on, though obviously much more could be done. One substantive matter: the Administration will claim the legislation allows for labor and environmental stipulations in trade deals. In fact, the language in the bill in this vein is phony. It is denounced as such by most environmental groups and all labor unions. Moreover, polling shows that "fast track" is opposed by a strong majority of citizens. Another dodge by the Clinto-crats is the promise that human/labor rights will be pursued "later" by some other mysterious means on a separate track. You could call this the fast track versus the slow boat. Besides the phony language in the bill, the White House will be trying to buy off marginal votes in congress by promising unrelated favors, or by promising special deals as part of trade deals (e.g., you vote for this and we'll stop Chilean grapes from coming in). The Black Caucus is pretty much against the bill, but the Hispanic caucus is more ambivalent. Much more detailed information can be found on web pages of trade unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Nader groups (particularly Public Citizen). Fun fact: VP Al 'Buddha can you spare a dime' Gore could barely deliver his speech to the AFL-CIO's working women conference over heckling he received over fast track. This is all going to be decided in a month or two. The longer it lingers the less chance the legislation has of passing. Any response has to happen quickly if it is to affect Congress; otherwise it falls into the category of education for the long run. As others have pointed out, this is an important matter and one where the national machinery of the Democratic Party (basically the White House) is out of step with the citizenry and most Democratic elected officials. Good reason why we need a LP, but also (warning: political ax-grinding ahead) a reason to forego attacks on Dems in general in principle and focus where the fault lies most heavily: the White House, the GOP, and a relative handful of corporatist Dems. I'd be happy to field any questions on this that I can, though I'm not a trade expert. Cheers, MBS =================================================== Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute other than this writer. ===================================================