Fast Track will put us on the Wrong Track

Lourdes Luján wakes each morning to a fetid smell that drifts from the Alamar River near her house in Colonia Chilpancingo, Tijuana. The river is rank with raw sewage and industrial wastewater, a byproduct of maquiladoras operating in the Mesa de Otay Industrial Park, just a few hundred yards away. During the summer months, the smell becomes almost unbearable. Luján worries about the health and safety of her children and others who live and play near the river.

The toxic pollutants that plague Luján and the residents of Colonia Chilpancingo are the legacy of U.S. and foreign-owned industries operating in Mexico under the auspice of the North American Free Trade Agreement. While the evidence is clear that NAFTA has failed to protect the environment, President Bush is promoting it as a model for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would expand NAFTA to 34 countries and cover almost all of North, Central and South America.

 Metales y Derivados, an abandoned lead smelter in Tijuana, embodies NAFTA’s  failure right here on the San Diego/Tijuana border. The U.S.-owned maquiladora recycled lead from car batteries for 12 years before Mexican authorities closed it in March of 1994 for violations of Mexican environmental law. Approximately 6,000 metric tons of lead slag and other toxic chemicals remain at the abandoned site, exposed to the elements. The site stands just 600 yards from Colonia Chilpancingo, home to more than 10,000 people.

Policymakers hailed NAFTA as the first trade agreement to link trade issues and the environment.  Its green promises rested on an environmental side agreement that touted enhanced levels of environmental protection and public participation. This agreement created the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), a tri-national institution comprised of the environmental ministers of Canada, the United States and Mexico, whose sole purpose is to “… promote the effective enforcement of environmental law.”  But today, the evidence is clear that the CEC has failed to achieve its basic mandate.

In October 1998, Environmental Health Coalition and a citizen’s group from Colonia Chilpancingo filed a petition with the CEC regarding Mexico’s failure to enforce its environmental laws in the Metales y Derivados case. In June 2000, the CEC declared that the petition warranted further investigation and ordered a factual record prepared. Today, as Chilpancingo residents continue to wait, the CEC “studies” the case. Even if the CEC determines that the Mexican government failed to effectively enforce its environmental laws, it cannot force Mexico to correct the problem.

The Metales case is not an exception. Since 1995, 30 citizen petitions have been filed with the CEC. Only two have had factual records prepared. Half have been dismissed and “action is pending” on the remainder. The abandoned drums of toxic waste rusting away at the Metales y Derivados site have come to symbolize  NAFTA’s broken promises.
The Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente (PROFEPA), the enforcement arm of the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT), the Mexican  equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency, last year identified a total of 105 abandoned  toxic sites in Mexico. Of these, 49 are in border states. Seven are in the border zone, within 62 miles of  the U.S. border. Six of these seven are classified as highly toxic, including Metales y Derivados.

NAFTA failed to reconcile the vast differences between the economies and infrastructure of the United States and Mexico. Now, Mexico alone must shoulder the burden of irresponsible foreign companies like Metales y Derivados. The parent company, New Frontier Trading Company, operates comfortably in San Diego with profits made in Tijuana at the expense of residents and neighboring communities. 

A fundamental flaw of NAFTA lies in how lawmakers negotiated the agreement.  It was struck behind closed doors with Canadian, U.S. and Mexican trade government officials and multinational corporations. Environmental and labor interests were not represented. Fast Track negotiating authority facilitated the deal, giving a President free reign to sign trade agreements with other governments. Congress has only limited time to consider the agreements and cannot amend them before voting.

The most recent attempt at fast track legislation is the Thomas Bill (H.R. 3005).  This bill seeks to grant the Executive Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which President Bush wants in order to negotiate the FTAA without being hampered by public input. 

EHC participated in a rally and press conference on Monday, Oct. 21, organized by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council where a coalition of labor, environmental groups, working people and community members called upon  Congresswoman Susan Davis to vote “no” on fast track. Many EHC members have communicated with the Congresswoman urging her to consider the negative impacts that fast track legislation would have on labor and the environment.  The congresswoman remained undecided as of the time of this writing but pledged to sincerely evaluate the information.

The fate of HR3005 might be decided very soon. The President claims that fast track authority goes hand in hand with fighting terrorism, but this is simply an opportunistic attempt to exploit the current situation and the nation’s newfound sense of unity.

EHC once again calls on all members of the San Diego Congressional delegation to say “no” to the proposed Fast Track bill. It takes us backward, not forward, at a time when our nation needs to focus on national security and the economy.