Reuters / By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of Congress are still a long way from reaching an agreement on difficult labor and environmental issues that stand in the way of new trade negotiating authority for President George W. Bush, a leading Democratic lawmaker said Thursday.
"In terms of fast track, I think we're months away... from any consensus on what should be in" the trade legislation, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan told reporters after an speech on trade-related labor issues. "There needs to be an effort to seek that common ground before it's presented."
A sharp disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over whether trade agreements should contain protections for workers and the environment has thwarted efforts to approve new presidential trade negotiating authority since April 1994.
The Bush administration wants new "trade promotion authority" to conclude negotiations on a Western Hemisphere free trade zone and a global round of trade talks.
U.S. farm and business groups worry developing countries will be scared away from both sets of negotiations if the United States insists on the right to impose sanctions if environmental and labor standards are not met.
Robert Zoellick, nominated to be the U.S. trade representative, told the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing Tuesday he hoped forge a new bipartisan consensus on how to handle the two issues.
But Zoellick said he had questions about the workability of labor and environmental provisions contained in a U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration.
That pact, which former President Bill Clinton sent to Congress shortly before leaving office, requires both countries to enforce their existing labor and environmental laws, even if changes in trade flows or economic performance create pressure on the governments not to take action.
Zoellick told the panel he had only "skimmed" the U.S-Jordan agreement, but had concerns about who would decide when either country was not enforcing its labor and environmental laws and what the penalty would be.
"Those are questions I'm going to get asked" if the Republican congressional leadership decides to move forward on the trade pact, Zoellick said.
Sen. Phil Gramm, a Texas Republican, warned the U.S.-Jordan provisions could prevent the United States from making changes in its Endangered Species Act or opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration.
CONCERNS TERMED "FAR-FETCHED"
Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, called those concerns "far-fetched" and said the U.S.-Jordan provisions "were a step forward" to ending the stalemate in Congress on new negotiating authority.
Meanwhile, a new study led by a University of Maryland international business professor called for negotiations on a "labor rights and trade agreement" under the World Trade Organization, the international body that governs trade.
At the centerpiece of that pact should be a commitment by countries to protect and enforce four core labor standards, Peter Morici, the report's principal author said.
Those are the prohibition of exploitative child labor, prohibition of forced labor, nondiscrimination in employment, and the right of workers to organize and engage in collective bargaining, he said.
To pursue such an agenda, the United States should provide technical assistance to help developing countries improve their labor standards, said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO, America's biggest labor organization.
But building a consensus at home and around the world on the issue "is going to be hard," she said.
Lee noted business groups were not opposed to using sanctions to punish competitors for unfair trading practices.
There is "no logical or intellectual reason" why sanctions can't be used to enforce labor and environmental standards as well, she said.
In the short term, labor and environmental advocates should consider alternatives to sanctions, Levin said.
"Realistically, we're a long way off from that kind of structure in the WTO," he said.:
