You've probably heard that trade agreements are a threat to American jobs, but you might be surprised to know that these same agreements are also putting Florida's water at risk.
This week the Bush administration is meeting in Miami with trade ministers from throughout the Americas. Among its goals are expansion of one of the most risky aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the entire Western Hemisphere through what's called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Here's the trouble: an obscure section of NAFTA says that U.S.laws, no matter how important or popular, that get in the way of foreign companies' profits can be legally challenged by those very companies in special trade courts, which are not open to the public.
It's happening now. When California banned a cancer-causing gasoline additive called MTBE that was leaking into drinking water, the Canadian chemical company that produces it sued U.S. taxpayers for lost profits totaling $1 billion. If the company wins, we and our neighbors will be paying a Canadian company to stop polluting.
Florida's drinking water is also contaminated with MTBE leaking from gas stations. If Tallahassee bans the additive, as it should, we too could be subject to a "corporate lawsuit" for the crime of trying to keep our water safe and clean.
Now the Bush administration is seeking to expand similar "investor" rules to cover the entire Western Hemisphere through the FTAA, putting communities both at home and abroad at risk from these corporate lawsuits.
As Florida runs out of ways to treat sewage water, many municipalities could contract with private companies to inject more wastewater deep underground. In some places in South Florida the waste is now percolating up toward the surface, threatening drinking water supplies with a toxic stew of fecal coliform and volatile organic chemicals in violation of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The practice of deep-well sewage injection should be banned or at least better regulated.
Any wastewater company from Canada or Latin America that might be operating here would likely view a ban on deep-well injection as a lost business opportunity. Under the FTAA, they would have new powers to sue U.S. taxpayers before special trade tribunals, just as the Canadian chemical company has done in California.
In the end, costs could run so high that Florida is blocked from efforts to ensure safe drinking water for its citizens.
What's worse, the Bush administration wants the FTAA to serve as a template for a global agreement on investment in the World Trade Organization. With over $2 trillion in foreign direct investment in the United States, some foreign investor will be adversely affected and tempted to sue just about any time government adopts new zoning rules to protect homes, raises property taxes for schools, or enforces new clean water regulations. Under these circumstances, the costs to taxpayers could skyrocket, crippling government's ability to act in the public interest.
There is a better way. At the Miami Summit, the Bush administration should negotiate trade-boosting tariff reductions with our Latin American neighbors. It should slash trade-distoring subsidies to polluting industries, including to the oil companies that seek to drill off Florida's coasts.
But it should not negotiate investor rules that put communities at risk here in Florida and across the Americas.
Pedro Monteiro is the Sierra Club Broward Group's conservation chairman.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.