Requests United States Congress to replace Fast Track Authority for ratifying United States trade agreements with new authority that is more democratic and inclusive and that requires United States Trade Representative to seek and obtain consent of Legislative Assembly before binding Oregon to trade agreement obligations.


 
 
 
     74th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2007 Regular Session
 
NOTE:  Matter within  { +  braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within  { -  braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
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 LC 3040
 
                     House Joint Memorial 18
 
Sponsored by Representatives WITT, CLEM; Representatives
  BARNHART, BUCKLEY, HOLVEY, ROSENBAUM (at the request of Oregon
  Fair Trade Coalition)
 
 
                             SUMMARY
 
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
 
  Requests United States Congress to replace Fast Track Authority
for ratifying United States trade agreements with new authority
that is more democratic and inclusive and that requires United
States Trade Representative to seek and obtain consent of
Legislative Assembly before binding Oregon to trade agreement
obligations.
 
                         JOINT MEMORIAL
To the President of the United States, the Senate and the House
  of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress
  assembled, and the United States Trade Representative,
  Ambassador Susan Schwab:
  We, your memorialists, the Seventy-fourth Legislative Assembly
of the State of Oregon, in legislative session assembled,
respectfully represent as follows:
  Whereas the World Trade Organization agreements and the North
American Free Trade Agreement, agreements that purport to govern
trade, each have an expansive scope of authority that reaches
significantly beyond establishing and enforcing tariffs and
import-export quotas, matters that were historically within the
province of trade regulation; and
  Whereas the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade
agreements to which the United States is a party grant foreign
businesses that operate in Oregon new rights and privileges that
exceed the rights and privileges that United States businesses
enjoy under state and federal law, including rights to acquire
land and facilities and to conduct operations within Oregon; and
  Whereas the rights and privileges granted in trade agreements
may enable investors and service providers to challenge Oregon
laws as 'nontariff barriers to trade' and thereby subject those
laws to binding arbitration in dispute resolution bodies created
by and operated under the rules set forth in the trade
agreements; and
  Whereas the North American Free Trade Agreement has already
generated 'regulatory takings' cases against state and local land
use decisions, state environmental and public health policies,
adverse state court rulings and state and local contracts, cases
that state and federal courts would not have heard; and
 
  Whereas many trade agreements contain provisions that regulate
government procurement practices that, because they are binding
on Oregon, could subject many Oregon laws that implement common
economic development and environmental policies to challenges for
violating trade agreement obligations, including buy local laws,
prevailing wage laws, laws that require recycled content in
products and laws that prevent jobs from being outsourced
overseas; and
  Whereas the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on
Trade in Services could undermine Oregon's efforts to expand
health care coverage, control health care costs, regulate
gambling, plan local land use, regulate energy production and
use, set higher education policy, license professionals and more;
and
  Whereas the World Trade Organization agreements and the North
American Free Trade Agreement, under which international
commercial trade rules are enforced, have undermined democratic,
accountable governance in the states generally and, in
particular, have undermined the authority that the Oregon
Constitution delegates to the Legislative Assembly; and
  Whereas challenges to Oregon laws based on the provisions of
existing and future trade agreements can encroach on Oregon's
regulatory authority, constrain or curtail Oregon's regulatory
options, limit the future policy choices of the Legislative
Assembly and further undermine democratic, accountable
governance; and
  Whereas the Fast Track Authority procedure for negotiating and
ratifying trade agreements, in driving the formulation and
implementation of United States trade policy, has allowed much of
this encroachment on state regulatory authority; and
  Whereas the Fast Track Authority, by delegating to the
executive branch of the federal government much of the authority
for setting the terms of trade that the United States
Constitution commits to Congress, has eliminated vital
constitutional checks and balances and empowered the executive
branch to negotiate and sign broad-ranging agreements before
obtaining a congressional vote; and
  Whereas allowing the executive branch to sign trade agreements
before a congressional vote enables the executive branch
negotiators to ignore congressional trade objectives and states'
demands and to prevent Congress and the states from participating
in any decision relating to the provisions that should or should
not be in all United States trade agreements; and
  Whereas federal trade negotiators have failed to respect
states' rights to informed consent, in advance, in cases where
provisions in trade agreements to which the negotiators have
agreed will be binding on the states; and
  Whereas trade negotiators sometimes refuse to give copies of
key correspondence to state legislatures despite the indisputable
fact that international trade agreements have a far-reaching
impact on state and local laws; and
  Whereas the Fast Track Authority also prevents Congress from
subjecting trade agreements that negotiators have signed to
normal deliberative procedures, including extensive debate and
floor amendments to implementing legislation, that would aid in
incorporating the trade agreements into federal law and in
conforming hundreds of federal laws to the obligations that the
trade agreements create; and
  Whereas limiting debate on trade agreements to 20 hours total
and forbidding floor amendments to implementing legislation
ensures that trade agreements receive inadequate consideration,
which in turn results in a wide array of unintended consequences;
and
  Whereas the Fast Track Authority that President Richard Nixon
obtained in 1974 to negotiate ordinary trade agreements that deal
with tariffs and quotas is an outdated and inappropriate method
for adequately considering and assessing new trade agreements
that venture into a diverse range of nontrade issues under the
guise of regulating trade, and that affect federal and state
policies and regulatory authority in a host of areas unrelated to
trade; and
  Whereas the existence of scores of trade agreements negotiated
and ratified during the past 30 years, including such major pacts
as the various World Trade Organization agreements, demonstrates
that Fast Track Authority is not necessary to implement a
successful trade policy; and
  Whereas the existing Fast Track Authority will expire in July
2007; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the State of
  Oregon:
  That we, the members of the Seventy-fourth Legislative
Assembly, respectfully request the United States Congress not to
renew the Fast Track Authority and to create a replacement method
for negotiating and ratifying trade agreements that is more
democratic, accountable and inclusive and that respects and
adheres to principles of federalism and state sovereignty; and be
it further
  Resolved, That the new method include an explicit provision
whereby the United States Trade Representative must seek and
obtain the informed consent, in advance, of the Oregon
Legislative Assembly before binding Oregon to any terms in a
trade agreement that do not concern tariffs but that affect
Oregon's regulatory authority; and be it further
  Resolved, That a copy of this memorial shall be sent to the
President of the United States, to the Senate Majority Leader, to
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the United States
Trade Representative and to each member of the Oregon
Congressional Delegation.
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