Providing for Consideration of H.R.3688, United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act
Floor Speech
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3688, UNITED STATES-PERU TRADE PROMOTION AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - November 07, 2007)
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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, today we take an important step forward in developing a comprehensive 21st century trade policy, recognizing that the benefits of trade cannot be measured solely in the volume of commerce that crosses international borders. A modern trade policy considers the impact of trade on workers and the environment, and this pact does that. Yet we have not fully achieved the goal of effective safeguards, and I believe that we are taking a step in the right direction; we're just not quite to the final destination. I believe it is better to approve this agreement as a step of genuine progress than to reject it.
This agreement includes unprecedented action to prevent illegal logging that is decimating rainforests in South America. For the first time in this agreement, environmental infractions can be enforced with something that is more than a mere parking ticket. That's what was done in prior agreements where governments wrote fines to themselves no matter how great the environmental degradation. And today, finally, we have recognition in this trade agreement of the importance of multilateral environmental agreements that have been totally disregarded in previous trade pacts.
So this is real progress. But I am pleased that our chairman and the Trade Subcommittee chairman have recognized that there is more work that we can do and there are plans to conduct hearings, the first ever hearings in the Ways and Means Committee, on the environmental effects of trade as well as on the investor-state provisions.
While our legislative intent is unequivocal regarding the agreement's preamble that ``no foreign investors have greater rights than do American citizens,'' the potential harm to our health, our worker safety, and our environmental laws from abuse of investor-state provisions demand the removal of outmoded and flawed language that keeps cropping up in these agreements and should not appear in future agreements.
Acknowledging that we are making real progress with this agreement is really a recognition of just how far behind we have been. After years of total indifference to the concerns of workers and the environment, this agreement addresses those concerns, and almost any change represents progress. Today we move forward, and eventually together I believe that our ultimate goals will be fulfilled.
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