[Vision2020] Bush to Surrender States Rights to WTO

[Tim Lohrmann]

Visionaries,
       Why do the Republicrats continue to go along
with this junk? No wonder so many people have quit
voting. 
      TL
>      


 March 28, 2003
> 
>       Bush Administration Poised to Trade Away Iowa
> Laws at WTO Negotiating Table in Geneva
> 
>       Bush Administration Plans March 31 Response to
> EU Demands to Open U.S. Water and Energy Systems,
> Postal Services and More to Foreign Ownership and
> Limit State Regulations
> 
> 
>       WASHINGTON, D.C. - Without approval by Iowa's
> legislature or Gov. Tom Vilsack, the Bush
> administration plans to submit offers next week at
> the World Trade Organization (WTO) that could
> require the state to open public services to
> foreign, for-profit ownership and strictly curtail
> state regulation of banking, insurance, electricity,
> water systems, transportation, alcohol distribution
> and professional services including those provided
> by doctors, lawyers and accountants.
> 
>       States would be required to conform their
> policies to global rules established as part of
> negotiations occurring under the WTO's General
> Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The threat to
> numerous state laws and policies was revealed only
> weeks ago when the European Union's (EU) demands of
> the U.S. were leaked from secretive talks being held
> at the WTO's Geneva headquarters.
> 
>       "With the public, press and elected officials
> all focused on the war, the Bush administration is
> poised to effect a silent, slow-motion coup d'etat
> on democratic governance in the United States," said
> Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global
> Trade Watch. "These so-called trade negotiations
> could rewrite wide swaths of local law without the
> vote of state legislatures or the knowledge of state
> attorneys general or governors."
> 
>       The leaked documents showed that a stunning
> scope of domestic policies that citizens expect to
> be set by their federal, state and local officials
> are poised to be eliminated in global negotiations
> pushed by giant, multinational service sector
> corporations such as Andersen, Halliburton and
> RWE/Thames Water. The policies include the
> privatization and deregulation of public energy and
> water utilities, postal services, higher education
> and alcohol distribution systems; the right of
> foreign firms to obtain U.S. government small
> business loans; and deregulation of private-sector
> industries such as insurance, banking, mutual funds
> and securities.
> 
> 
>       The EU also requested the elimination of
> Iowa's alcohol control distribution system, which
> generated more than $60 million in 2001 for the
> state, with nearly $3 million earmarked for Iowa
> cities and counties. Alcohol was a $110 million
> business in the state in 2001. Seventeen other
> states with alcohol control systems generate
> combined annual revenue of more than $1 billion from
> their state-owned wholesale and retail outlets.
> 
>       "The 21st Amendment not only provided for the
> repeal of national prohibition, but it also provided
> each state the right to choose how alcohol would be
> regulated within the state," said Jim Sgueo,
> executive director of the National Alcohol Beverage
> Control Association (NABCA). "Should the United
> States agree to the EU's request that the control
> state systems be dissolved, it would undermine the
> Constitution of the United States and the states'
> rights provided by it."
> 
> 
>       In addition, the EU requests the elimination
> of Iowa laws in accounting, auditing and bookkeeping
> and the removal of in-state residency requirements
> in engineering services.
> 
>       In a letter sent last month to Iowa Attorney
> General Tom Miller, Public Citizen wrote, "State and
> local regulatory authority could be curtailed
> profoundly and the Constitutional balances of
> federalism irreversibly biased if states do not act
> now to protect their interests during these ongoing
> negotiations."
> 
>       In the past, including when the WTO was
> formed, U.S. trade negotiators made binding
> commitments regarding state and local regulatory
> authority without formally consulting state
> legislatures and other local officials. The national
> consumer group Public Citizen and civil society
> groups worldwide have called for a moratorium on the
> GATS talks and a public process involving state and
> local officials.
> 
>       Areas in which the EU's demands would impact
> laws in all U.S. states include:
> 
>         a.. Professional services, including legal,
> accounting, auditing and bookkeeping, as well as
> architectural services, urban planning, integrated
> engineering and engineering; 
>         b.. Business services, including research
> and development, as well as real estate, rental and
> leasing, security services, printing and publishing;
> 
>         c.. Distribution services, including
> alcohol, tobacco and food; 
>         d.. Private higher education services; 
>         e.. Environmental services, including
> drinking water, wastewater and waste management; 
>         f.. Energy services, and electricity
> wholesale and retail; 
>         g.. Financial services, including insurance,
> banking and mutual funds; 
>         h.. Tourism and travel-related services,
> including concessions in national and state parks; 
>         i.. Transportation services; 
>         j.. Telecommunications; and 
>         k.. Construction. 
>       In these sectors, the EU is asking the United
> States to remove existing regulation of services by
> eliminating state insurance chartering, lifting
> rules regulating legal practice, or removing certain
> banking regulations - and/or requesting "market
> access" in one or more of the four "modes" of GATS.
> These include the right to set-up an operation or
> commercial presence in the United States, the right
> to provide cross-border services (for instance,
> online mutual funds), the right to send service
> workers into the United States to perform a service
> contract made with a foreign company, and the right
> to sell services to U.S. citizens abroad. Once
> market access is granted, all levels of government -
> city, county, state and federal - are forbidden from
> limiting the number of service providers in these
> areas and also must provide certain treatment to
> foreign service providers.
> 
>       For a background memo on the GATS and how it
> operates, and to see the EU GATS demands, click
> here.
> 
>       ###
> 
>       Public Citizen is an independent voice for
> citizens in the halls of power.
>       We take NO government or corporate money.
> Copyright © 2003 Public Citizen. All rights
reserved.



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