June 7, 2001
Green Files #23: 1. Bill Moyers Reports: Earth On Edge (June 19) + 2. President Jimmy Carter on misinformation and scare tactics by President Bush + 3. Kyoto Agreement + 4. Letter from Robert Redford + 5. ENRON END RUN + 6. SAVING WILDLIFE: Conservationists defend Endangered Species Act & SENATE SHAKEUP: Changeover can't stop Bush energy plan + 7. DIM SUMMARY & SOUTH OF THE BOLDER & CHENEY TAKES US FOR FUELS + 8. GMO-Crop Coup: Seeds of Discontent
Hello everyone
This compilation documents the shameful legacy of environmental havoc in the process of being implemented by the Bush/Cheney team, in league with some of the worst polluters and environmental abusers the Earth has ever known. This lethal combination of corporate greed and political opportunism and an almost pathological blindness to the consequences of the stupid, shortsighted environmental policies this administration is pursuing call for a global green revolution of minds and hearts to prevent the unthinkable and avoidable from ever occuring.
I trust *you* also take at heart to help turn around this situation while there is still time - but barely! - to do so.
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
P.S. Make sure to read "GMO-Crop Coup: Seeds of Discontent" at the end of this compilation about the GMO-contamination of our entire food supply in America. Compelling. Outrageous! A must read.
1.
From: mountainsrme@webtv.net (Mark Quire)
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001
Subject: BILL MOYERS REPORTS: EARTH ON EDGE
I hope everyone will take time out of their busy schedules to watch this show.
Happy Trails
Mark
Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?
- Ezekiel 34:18
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last fish has been caught, only after the last river has been poisoned, only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree Native
From: http://www.aptv.org/MainPage/earthonedge.html
Bill Moyers Reports: Earth On Edge
Tuesday, June 19 at 8:00pm
(Check local listings for time)
Acclaimed journalist Bill Moyers and an award-winning team of producers reveal recent scientific evidence that Earth is approaching a key environmental threshold. Bill Moyers Reports: Earth On Edge showcases new data depicting the scale of human impact on the planet's life-support systems. The two-hour program explores one of the most important questions of the new century: What is happening to Earth's capacity to support nature and civilization?
The documentary coincides with the launch of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, an international effort to gauge the health of the world's forests, grasslands, coastal and freshwater areas. Preliminary findings were featured in the World Resources Institute's (WRI) World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life. The statistics from their preliminary findings are staggering: half the world's wetlands lost in one century, half the world's forests chopped down, 70 percent of the world's major marine fisheries depleted, the world's reefs at risk.
But Earth On Edge pushes well past the numbers. Moyers and his team also take viewers on a journey of hope to meet people from the American Midwest to Mongolia who are pioneering sustainable solutions to ecological problems. Each story takes place in one of five major ecosystems: forest, agriculture, coastal, grassland, and fresh water. Reports from Kansas, British Columbia, Brazil, South Africa, and Mongolia illuminate the ways in which human demands over the past century have been wearing holes in the fabric of life. The program profiles individuals who are confronting the challenge head on, people who understand how their lives depend on Earth's ecosystems, and how their own energy and dedication might help restore them.
In South Africa, Moyers visits Working for Water, an innovative government program that has trained 40,000 unemployed people to cut down thousands of invasive trees and restore the precious water that flows from the mountains to the rivers. Traveling to Vancouver, British Columbia, Moyers' team tells the story of an experimental collaboration with one of Canada's biggest timber companies. Viewers join loggers as they fly in and out of the forest by helicopter to harvest trees in a way that mimics the natural process and allows the ancient rainforests and the wildlife they support to survive. In Mongolia, where the size of the herd determines wealth, Moyers spotlights the need to train new herders in the ancient techniques of migration to restore the overgrazed and parched landscape. From the coral reefs and mangroves of Brazil, the program examines a $4 million government project to close off some areas of an endangered reef in hopes that the coral and marine life will recover and allow fishermen and tourists to use and enjoy the coast in a sustainable way. And, finally, Moyers returns to America's Kansas prairies, where one farmer is bucking the tide against excessive herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers that sap the soil of nutrients and pollute drinking water.
Moyers tells individual stories, in far-flung locations, but in the end it is strikingly clear that the program is about what has been done to the Earth and what can still be done to turn things around. Bill Moyers Reports: Earth On Edge will be augmented by an extensive web site, as well as an education and outreach campaign directed by WRI. The site will provide in-depth information about ecosystems as well as updates on their status and instructions for taking action. WRI is also organizing a series of live events and panel discussions promoting public dialogue around the issues raised by Earth On Edge and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
2.
From: "Jerry Rothstein" <jerry@turquoise.net>
Subject: President Jimmy Carter on misinformation and scare tactics by President Bush
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001
Misinformation and Scare Tactics
By Jimmy Carter
Thursday, May 17, 2001
It has been more than 20 years since our country developed a comprehensive energy policy. It is important for President Bush and Congress to take another look at this important issue, but not based on misleading statements made lately by high administration officials. These comments have distorted history and future needs.
I was governor of Georgia during the administration of Richard Nixon, when a combination of oil shortages and an OPEC boycott produced a real energy crisis in the United States. Five years later, the Iran-Iraq war shut off 4 million barrels of the world's daily oil supplies almost overnight, and the price of energy more than doubled in just 12 months. This caused a wave of inflation in all industrialized countries and created energy shortages. As before, there were long lines of vehicles at service stations, with drivers eager to pay even astronomical prices for available fuel.
No energy crisis exists now that equates in any way with those we faced in 1973 and 1979. World supplies are adequate and reasonably stable, price fluctuations are cyclical, reserves are plentiful, and automobiles aren't waiting in line at service stations. Exaggerated claims seem designed to promote some long-frustrated ambitions of the oil industry at the expense of environmental quality.
Also contrary to recent statements by top officials, a bipartisan Congress worked closely with me for four years to create a well-balanced approach to the problem. No influential person ever spoke "exclusively of conservation," and my administration never believed that "we could simply conserve orration our way out of" any energy crisis. On the contrary, we emphasized both energy conservation and the increased production of oil, gas, coal and solar energy. Permanent laws were laboriously hammered out that brought an unprecedented commitment to efficient use of energy supplies. We mandated improved home insulation, energy savings in the design of industrial equipment and home appliances and a step-by-step increase in gas mileage of all automobiles manufactured in our country.
When I was inaugurated, American vehicles were averaging only 12 miles per gallon. Today, new cars reach more than twice this gas mileage, which would be much higher except for the failure to maintain the efficiency standards, beginning in the Reagan years. (Gas mileage has actually gone down during the past five years.)
Official statistics published by the departments of energy and labor reveal the facts: Since I signed the final energy bills in 1980, America's gross national product has increased by 90 percent, while total energy consumption went up only 26 percent. Our emphasis on coal and other sources of energy and improved efficiency has limited petroleum consumption to an increase of only 12 percent. During this time, non-energy prices have risen 2 1/2 times as much as energy prices, and gasoline prices have actually declined by 41 percent, in real terms and even including the temporary surge in the past two years.
Although these energy conservation decisions have been criticized as "a sign of [my] personal virtue," it is clear that the benefits have resulted from a commitment to improved technology, with extremely beneficial results for American consumers, business and commerce. Top executives in the oil industry should acknowledge their tremendous freedom to explore, extract and market oil and gas products that resulted from the decisions made by Congress during my term in Washington.
In fact, our most difficult legislative battle was over the deregulation of oil and gas prices, designed so that competitive prices would both discourage the waste of energy and promote exploration for new sources of petroleum products. At the end of 1980, every available drilling rig in the United States was being utilized at full capacity, and dependence on foreign imports was falling rapidly.
Despite these facts, some officials are using misinformation and scare tactics to justify such environmental atrocities as drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which I signed in December 1980, approved 100 percent of the offshore areas and 95 percent of the potentially productive oil and mineral areas for exploration or for drilling. We excluded the wildlife refuge, confirming a decision first made by President Dwight Eisenhower, when Alaska became a state in 1959, to set aside this area as a precious natural heritage.
Those who advocate drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to meet current needs are careful to conceal the facts that almost none of the electricity in energy-troubled California is generated from oil.
It is important for private citizens and organizations to know the facts and to join in the coming debates -- so we can continue the policies of the late 1970s: a careful balance between production and conservation.
Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
3.
From: "Michael" <michael@divinity.com>
Subject: Kyoto Agreement
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001
President Bush recently announced that the United States Government will not honour its commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases. The United States produce 25% of the world's carbon dioxide, a gas that is believed to be the main contributor to global warming.
Rising global temperatures are known to raise sea levels, and change precipitation and other climate conditions. Changing climates alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also threaten human health, and harm birds, fish, and many types of ecosystems. An increase in weather-related disasters will occur, deserts may expand into existing range lands, densely populated coastal areas will flood and large numbers of people will have to move.
Show you disagree with the Bush Administration's decision to withdraw from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming. Urge President Bush to review his policy in this matter and devise a comprehensive plan to reduce US emissions of so-called greenhouse gases.
Sign your name, town and country of residence at the bottom of this e-mail, and send it to the White House at president@whitehouse.gov to show Mr. Bush the world is watching.
Then copy the entire text of this e-mail (do NOT use the forward button), into a new message and send it to as many people as possible so they may do just the same.
Thank you.
4.
From: "Elizabeth Carr-Allen" <carrallen@adelphia.net>
Subject: Letter from Robert Redford
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001
A message from Robert Redford
Dear Friend:
I've never circulated this kind of email before. But I am so appalled by President Bush's plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to massive oil development that I feel I must do whatever I can to help stop it.
To me, the Arctic Refuge represents everything spectacular and everything endangered about America's natural heritage: a million years of ecological serenity . . . vast expanses of untouched wilderness .. . . an irreplaceable sanctuary for polar bears, white wolves and 130,000 caribous that return here each year to give birth and rear their young. For 20,000 years -- literally hundreds of generations -- the native Gwich'in people have inhabited this sacred place, following the caribou herd and leaving the awe-inspiring landscape just as they found it. Our own presidents going back to Eisenhower have kept a bipartisan promise to safeguard this world-class natural treasure. But not THIS president. It is a sad day indeed when our president and congressional leaders would sacrifice America's largest wildlife refuge for the sake of a possible six-month supply of national energy. A six-month supply! We could save that little oil by improving the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by a mere one mile per gallon.
Only one group of Americans will benefit from the destruction of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge: the oil giants. Everyone else loses. Arctic wildlife populations will decline, the Gwich'in people will see their land marred by pipelines and poisoned by oil spills, you and I will become even more dependent on oil, and the planet will suffer catastrophic global warming from the burning of even more fossil fuel.
Unless we get millions of Americans to lodge a protest right now, this nightmarish scenario may well come to pass in the next two months. The Republican energy bill, which would fulfill the president's promise to drill the Arctic Refuge, is moving through Congress today. House and Senate leaders may also try to sneak through the Arctic drilling provision by attaching it to a "must-pass" appropriations bill. These votes will be decided by the moderates in both parties. We must reach those moderates and hold them accountable.
Here's what you can do: go to
Save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has set up this new website to make it extremely easy for you to send messages of protest to your senators and representative. It will take y! ou only a minute.
I've been on NRDC's board for 25 years, so I know how effective they are at waging and winning environmental campaigns. Last year, NRDC used web activism to help generate a million messages of protest to Mitsubishi and stopped the company from destroying the last unspoiled birthing ground of the Pacific gray whale.
We'll win this time too if each of us does our part for the Arctic Refuge. Please visit Save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic right now. And forward my message to your family, friends and colleagues. Congress cannot ignore millions of us.
If we let them plunder our greatest wildlife refuge for the sake of oil company profits, then no piece of our natural heritage is safe from destruction. Please help keep the Arctic wild and free.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
5.
DAILY GRIST
04 Jun 2001
http://www.gristmagazine.com
CLIP
3.
ENRON END RUN
With the Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate, prospects for President Bush's energy plan have gotten significantly dimmer. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the incoming chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he would try to force the Energy Department to draft rules to increase the fuel efficiency of SUVs and light trucks. He also said he would oppose opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. On a related note, here's an item that you may (or may not) find shocking: At least three of the top White House advisors who helped draft the Bush administration's energy plan own stock in the Enron Corporation or have earned fees from the Texas-based energy trading company.
USA Today, Jonathan Weisman, 04 Jun 2001
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20010604/3369364s.htm
New York Times, Joseph Kahn, 03 Jun 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/03/politics/03DISC.html
6.
From: "Jerry Rothstein" <jerry@turquoise.net>
Subject: Fw: DENlines Issue 41
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001
From: Defenders of Wildlife
Content:
SAVING WILDLIFE: Conservationists defend Endangered Species Act
SENATE SHAKEUP: Changeover can't stop Bush energy plan
POISON ALERT: Extremists threaten public health
CALL OF THE WILD: New protections for Denali's famous wolves
GLOBAL WARMING: Explorer sees shrinking of Arctic ice
EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS: Save wildlife with every charge you make
WHALE WATCHERS: Scientists concerned that oil rigs may harm whales
1. SAVING WILDLIFE: Conservationists defend Endangered Species Act Famed primatologist Jane Goodall joined conservationists this week in an aggressive effort to save the Endangered Species Act from Bush administration attempts to cripple the landmark law. The administration wants to effectively deny citizens the right under the statute to petition their government to protect imperiled wildlife. Also under changes proposed by the White House, Interior Secretary Gale Norton would gain the sole authority to decide which animals and plants are placed on the endangered species list. Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen warned that "politics would trump science" if Norton is making these decisions and "there would be no serious federal effort in this country to save additional endangered species."
Read Schlickeisen's full statement at http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/esa.html
At events held across the country, conservationists released a report by Defenders of Wildlife and other groups warning that many species - including Cerulean warblers, Aleutian sea otters, New England cottontails, and wolverines -- already are in danger of extinction while waiting for protection under the law. Read the report at http://www.defenders.org/publications/report.pdf
"Not only does the miracle of biodiversity enrich and beautify our lives, but the many species that exist are like rivets in an airplane -- an airplane that keeps us all aloft," actor Ed Begley Jr. said in Los Angeles. "How many rivets can we lose before we all crash and burn?" Goodall said: "It is tragic to see how much of the natural world we have despoiled. We do not have much time left. We must act now."
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Speak out against the Bush administration's attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act. Go at http://www.denaction.org and send a free e-mail today to your elected representatives voicing your support for maintaining this important law to save imperiled wildlife for future generations. Congress will debate this issue soon, so take action now. Don't let the White House take away your right to petition the government on behalf of endangered wildlife.
2. SENATE SHAKEUP: Changeover can't stop Bush energy plan
The Bush energy plan may have been stalled by the changeover in political control of the Senate. Big Oil champion Frank Murkowski of Alaska is out, and the moderate Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico is in as chairman of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Bingaman opposes oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- a key plank in the Bush energy plan. Vermont's Jim Jeffords, whose defection from the GOP caused the Senate shakeup, now is in line to chair the Environment and Public Works Committee. He's against drilling in the Arctic refuge, too, and he's co-sponsor of legislation to sharply reduce power-plant emissions of greenhouse gases. But conservationists are pointing out that the administration still controls major aspects of the energy agenda that don't depend on legislation. Only 20 of the Bush plan's 105 energy proposals require congressional action. The White House can enact many of its proposals through executive orders. Go at http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/energyplan.html to learn how the Bush energy plan would weaken protections for public land and wildlife.
CLIP
DENlines is a bi-weekly publication of Defenders of Wildlife, a leading national conservation organization recognized as one of the nation's most progressive advocates for wildlife and its habitat. It is known for its effective leadership on endangered species issues, particularly predators such as brown bears and gray wolves. Defenders also advocates new approaches to wildlife conservation that protect species before they become endangered. Founded in 1947, Defenders is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with more than 400,000 members and supporters.
To subscribe to DENlines, please go at http://www.defenders.org/den/denform.html
Defenders of Wildlife
1101 14th Street, N.W.
Suite 1400
Washington, DC 20005
7.
DAILY GRIST
06 Jun 2001
http://www.gristmagazine.com
CLIP
2.
SOUTH OF THE BOLDER
Petroleos Mexicanos, the world's fifth-largest oil company, said this week that it would start a six-month internal effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions 1 percent below 1999 levels, as the first step in a 10-year emissions reduction program. The state-owned Mexican company is the first Latin American firm to say publicly that it would reduce its emissions. Meanwhile, U.S. President Bush is planning to announce some ways the U.S. might reduce its greenhouse gas emissions during meetings next week with European Union leaders. Bush met for an hour (wow!) yesterday with top foreign policy, energy, and environmental officials to discuss climate change. White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said, "There's no question that the temperature of the Earth has been rising."
Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 05 Jun 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21406-2001Jun4.html
Washington Post, Mike Allen, 06 Jun 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26088-2001Jun5.html
Las Vegas Sun, Associated Press, John Heilprin, 06 Jun 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2001/jun/06/060609660.html
CLIP
4.
CHENEY TAKES US FOR FUELS
The same day that a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed public support for President Bush's energy policy at 37 percent, Vice President Dick Cheney held his first serious meeting with environmental groups. During the session yesterday, leaders from four green groups asked the Bush administration to work to boost fuel-economy standards to 40 miles per gallon for cars and SUVs; require electricity suppliers to produce 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020; and set limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Cheney was present for 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-half-long meeting.
Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 06 Jun 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010606/t000047217.html
MSNBC.com, Miguel Llanos, 05 Jun 2001
http://www.msnbc.com/news/582577.asp
CLIP
To subscribe to DAILY GRIST, go at http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/signup/subgrist.asp
8.
From: "Nancy Allen" <nallen@acadia.net>
Subject: GMO-Crop Coup: Seeds of Discontent
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001
Hi Jean..did you see this?...I originally titled in CROP COUP but the editors did not like that!!...
Nancy
From: http://www.greenparties.org/articles/allen_06_03_01.html
Published on Sunday, June 3, 2001 in the Maine Sunday Telegram
Seeds of Discontent
Farmers - and the public - may soon learn there's no turning back on genetically modified foods as the hemisphere hurtles toward another ill-considered trade pact.
by Nancy Allen
As George W. Bush took the reins of power in Washington, perennial political hopeful Steve Forbes predicted that "we're going to get as much as we can as fast as we can." With the coming vote in Congress on so-called "fast track" trade rules (or Trade Promotion Authority, as the Bush people call it), Forbes' boast appears to be on target. This is especially true when we consider the link between promotion of genetically engineered foods and the passage of trade deals.
Back in 1992 only a few people, mostly connected to Ralph Nader and the Green Party, saw what these trade deals really meant for our food supply, for farmers, for workers and for the environment. Most people are simply unaware that trade deals, along with World Trade Organization (WTO) decision making, could override local, state and even national laws.
On April 5, the Wall Street Journal published a study on genetically modified foods (GMOs) almost ignored in the rest of the media. Twenty food products labeled "non-GMO" or "GMO-free" were tested on behalf of the Journal by a prominent food laboratory. Of the 20, 16 contained evidence of genetic material used to modify plants.
At about the same time, a telephone poll conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 75 percent of U.S. respondents say they wanted to know if their food contained GMO ingredients. And 58 percent opposed such ingredients. The public clearly mistrusts genetic manipulation of food. That concern is not unfounded.
According to the Wall Street Journal study, "the problem, regulators say, is that some genetically modified crops - which have been designed to resist disease, pests and chemicals - can cross-pollinate freely with regular crops, passing along their altered traits to the next generation".
Perhaps this contamination of our food is more than just an accident.
"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with genetically engineered organisms] that there's nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender", food industry consultant Don Westfall is quoted as saying in the Toronto Star earlier this year. Westfall, who supports the development of genetically modified foods, is vice-president of Promar International, a consulting company based in a Washington, D.C. suburb.
The problem exists because government regulators badly underestimated the situation. To me, this is more than just a "problem". It is an unmitigated disaster, especially for farmers trying to sell crops in an increasingly globalized marketplace. Many countries will not import genetically modified food from the United States. Farmers become victims of international trade promotion sanctioned by a U.S. Congress that appears willing to subvert laws of national governments to those of an unelected, unaccountable international trade organization.
In a newsletter sent to county organizations in April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked farmers to "check corn seed." The newsletter warned: "StarLink is the trade name for corn genetically modified to be pest resistant by producing a protein called Cry9C. USDA is recommending that farmers not plant any corn unless they are certain that the seed has been tested and found to be free of this protein. Farmers should ask seed companies to verify the seed corn has been tested to ensure their corn does not contain the Cry9C protein."
The warning comes too late. StarLink, the genetically altered corn approved only for animal feed and planted on less than 1 percent of U.S. corn acres in 2000, has been found in corn meant for human consumption. It is now widespread in human food and in this years' seed corn.
Last month, four scientists in Canada submitted a report to the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee saying the human food supply is in danger of being contaminated by genetically modified crops. The Boston Globe reported on May 17 that StarLink corn "has turned up in nearly one out of four grain samples undergoing the government's most stringent tests, a far higher number than previously reported and another sign of the chaos the corn's presence has caused."
The contamination is ongoing, not only because of cross-pollination but also because of product mixing in grain elevators, barges and combines.
Involved federal agencies haven't the faintest idea what to do other than to ask farmers to get their seed companies to certify the seed they plant this year is GMO free! This is no solution; this is passing the buck to the blameless farmer for any liability caused by StarLink contamination.
In a May 8 letter to me regarding what I should do about my corn seed for this year, EPA official, Jay Ellenberger, in the Office of Pesticide Programs wrote, "We recommend that you verify from the seed company before your purchase that it has tested for the StarLink protein using USDA-certified test kits and it has subsequently determined that no StarLink protein is present in its product."
The answer I got from my own corn seed company was that seed testing for StarLink corn was in a two-month backlog and they could not certify my seed corn. Farmers will have already planted this year's corn before regulators catch up with the situation.
Why wasn't Washington paying attention? The answer has a lot to do with a government regulatory process, and trade policy, so dominated by a "fast track" to corporate success and profit that citizen action and farmer concerns about genetic manipulation of food have been all but ignored.
Soon Congress will vote on "fast track" authority for the new trade agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would extend the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the southern hemisphere. In spite of the fact that almost all statistics show that NAFTA has been a dismal failure for workers and the environment in the three countries already involved (Canada, Mexico and the United States), agribusiness traders are drooling at the prospect of extending their crop coup to Central and South America.
"Fast track" authority would allow a president to draw up a pact and submit it to Congress for a simple yes-or-no vote, without amendments. (No advice, please, senators, just consent.)
Unfortunately, FTAA, like NAFTA, will not be voted on as a treaty, though it most certainly is one. To pass a treaty, however, requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate and FTAA backers know they do not have the necessary votes.
With the passage of the new trade agreement, the U.S. biotech corporations would have a much easier time marketing their genetically altered food products. FTAA/WTO rules could consider national laws prohibiting GMO foods as barriers to trade. The countries trying to keep their food supply free of genetically modified foods would have to either submit to the WTO decision or pay large sanctions.
Once the food supply is so infiltrated with these products that their presence is inevitable, the corporations will have free rein to market all over the world and their profits and purpose will be fully operational.
One can only marvel at the foresight, planning, lobbying, money and power that go in to this scenario. The true losers, of course, are farmers and consumers who are victims of this crop coup, along with an environment so contaminated with cross-pollinated crops it will be nearly impossible to reverse. With the food genie out of the bottle and the trade train on the congressional fast track, Steve Forbe's bully prediction will almost certainly come true.
But if farmers, workers, consumers and environmental activists make the connection between undemocratic, destructive trade policies and plans for a worldwide genetically manipulated food supply, it becomes quite clear we are all being taken for a power-grabbing ride once again - a ride which has been a very long one indeed for many, many people.
Still, we do have time to stop the "Fast Track" train. The vote is expected in mid-summer. Maine's Congressional delegation has a decent record opposing it. Greens and others should hold them to it.
Nancy Allen, of Brooksville, Maine is a Green Party organizer and one of the party's media coordinators. She can be contacted at: nallen@acadia.net