Environment in a Larger Context
International Trade Agreements [click here to read question twenty-seven]
"Yes. I support eliminating the WTO and NAFTA, in part because of their effects on the environment. If the United States is to be free to negotiate fair trade agreements that protect jobs, the rights of workers, and the environment, then there is no alternative but to repeal NAFTA and withdraw from the WTO. I have sworn to repeal NAFTA and the WTO, and I will unalterably continue to work toward these goals. For a decade, we have been subjected to a grand experiment called NAFTA. When that agreement was signed in 1993, it was enthusiastically supported by big business, Republicans, and all too many Democrats. Now it is clear that this experiment has failed. We've lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs since July 2000. Over a half million of these are directly attributable to NAFTA. Our trade deficit grew to $418 billion last year and continues to climb. And, because of the WTO, corporations have been granted unprecedented powers to sue the government in closed trade courts anytime laws designed to protect workers or the environment are deemed to infringe on corporate "rights."
This is called "free trade." But where is freedom when jobs are lost? Where is freedom when industries threaten to move out of the country unless wages are cut? Where is freedom when the right to bargain collectively is crushed? Where is freedom when a union is broken? Where is freedom when you can't make a mortgage payment? Where is freedom when you can't send your children to college? An economic democracy is a precondition of a political democracy.
It is time to reclaim state and local sovereignty, which NAFTA has usurped. No NAFTA, no Fast Track Authority. Fast track is a barrier. Fast track brought us NAFTA. It prohibits amending trade agreements. We could not amend NAFTA Chapter 11, which grants corporate investors in all NAFTA countries the right to challenge any local, state, or federal regulations, which, those corporations say, hurt their profits. No more back track on democracy. No more back track on workers' rights. No more back track on human rights. No back track on the Bill of Rights.
The Bush administration wants to extend NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere through the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). This proposal is being pushed by the administration and its Republican allies in Congress and the corporate world, although it is opposed by many leaders throughout Latin America. The only way to undo the damage these trade deals have caused is to end them. If the United States is to be free to negotiate fair trade agreements that protect jobs, the rights of workers, and the environment, then there is no alternative but to withdraw from the WTO. If our agriculture, textiles, and other industries are going to be able to help pull the world up, rather than being dragged down to the level of serfdom or exported abroad, we must put an end to the disaster known as the WTO.
The NAFTA and WTO treaties include legal clauses permitting the signatory countries to withdraw from them at any time, following a routine notification period. As President I will invoke these withdrawal clauses and once and for all take America out of an unfair system of corporate trade. We should return to bilateral trade conditioned on workers' rights, human rights, and environmental quality principles. This would provide security for American workers and for workers worldwide. We need a new start. We must begin from scratch with decent, bilaterally negotiated trade agreements between this country and each other country we trade with, agreements that are based from the start on the needs of people and communities and respect for the environment."
Federal Pre-emption of State Laws [click here to read question twenty-eight]
"Yes. The federal government should set a minimum level of protection for all, allowing the states to go further if they so choose."
World Population [click here to read question twenty-nine]
"Yes. I support increasing funding for such programs. One of the best things we can do to stabilize world population is to provide greater international assistance to poor countries for women and children for access to give them access to better healthcare and education. We need to support programs that address the complex linkages between population dynamics, poverty and sustainable development in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed framework to halve poverty by the year 2015. It is important that poverty, in addition to overpopulation, drives unsustainable use of natural resources."
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) [click here to read question thiry]
"I support strengthening NEPA. It currently has no regulatory teeth which allows policy options that are less protective of the environment than they could be to go forward. Furthermore, the very selection of the menu of policy options to be considered is often overly restrictive. Affected communities must be given binding authority to shape the NEPA evaluations. A strengthened NEPA could also serve as a model to evaluate projects that might affect global warming."
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