Bill Text: OR SM1 | 2011 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Urging Congress to enact and the President to sign Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act.

Spectrum: Committee Bill

Status: (Failed) 2011-06-30 - In committee upon adjournment. [SM1 Detail]

Download: Oregon-2011-SM1-Introduced.html

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     76th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2011 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 3342

                        Senate Memorial 1

Sponsored by COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT, CONSUMER AND SMALL
  BUSINESS PROTECTION

                             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.

  Urges Congress to enact and the President to sign Trade Reform,
Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act.

                         SENATE 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 Ron Kirk:
  We, your memorialists, the Senate of the State of Oregon, in
legislative session assembled, respectfully represent as follows:
  Whereas it is possible to craft trade policy that encourages
balanced trade, job creation and sustainable development both at
home and abroad without undermining the traditional American
values of constitutional federalism; and
  Whereas each of the existing international pacts that purport
to govern trade, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement,
Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade
Agreement and various agreements of the World Trade Organization,
has 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 these and other pacts, to which the United States is
currently a party, grant foreign businesses that operate in
Oregon new rights and privileges that exceed the rights and
privileges that American businesses enjoy under state and federal
law; and
  Whereas the rights and privileges granted in these pacts may
enable foreign 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
that circumvent the United States judicial system; 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 such pacts contain provisions that regulate
government procurement practices that, because they are binding
on Oregon, could subject Oregon laws that implement common
economic development and environmental policies to challenges for
violating trade pact obligations; 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 such pacts undermine democratic, accountable governance
in the states generally, and Oregon in particular; and
  Whereas such pacts have undermined the authority that the
Oregon Constitution delegates to the Legislative Assembly; and
  Whereas pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama
and Colombia contain similar provisions that could encroach upon
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, since the North American Free Trade Agreement was
enacted in 1994 and fully implemented on January 1, 2008, the
United States Department of Labor has certified more than 50,000
Oregonians as having lost their jobs due to direct offshoring or
displacement by imports; and
  Whereas federal legislation known as the Trade Reform,
Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act requires
the Comptroller General of the United States to report on any
state laws, regulations or policies that are challenged or
threatened under existing trade pacts and to provide an analysis
of any privatization of state services or limiting influence on
state procurement policies that result from such pacts; and
  Whereas the TRADE Act requires that future international trade
pacts ensure that foreign investors operating in the United
States are not afforded greater rights than those afforded to
domestic investors by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, and that state laws, regulations and contracts not be
subject to investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanisms that
circumvent the United States judicial system; and
  Whereas the TRADE Act requires that future international trade
pacts preserve the right of state and local governments to
maintain essential public services and to regulate, for the
benefit of the public, services provided to consumers in the
United States, and also prohibits trade pact provisions from
requiring the privatization or deregulation of state services;
and
  Whereas the TRADE Act requires that future international trade
pacts may require state governments to comply with the pacts'
procurement, investment or services provisions only if the state
government has been consulted in full and has given explicit
consent to be bound by such provisions; and
  Whereas the TRADE Act contains processes by which existing
international trade pacts can be renegotiated to meet these
standards, and contains a 'Sense of the Congress' for improving
United States trade negotiations with respect to concerns
regarding federalism; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Oregon:
  That we, the members of the Senate of the Seventy-sixth
Legislative Assembly, respectfully request that the United States
Congress pass the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and
Employment (TRADE) Act, and that the President sign the Act into
law; 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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