Hilda L. Solis: “just to touch briefly and say, on NAFTA and what is happening in Mexico, there is a big discussion about the rain forest…”

“just to touch briefly and say, on NAFTA and what is happening in Mexico, there is a big discussion about the rain forest and the decimation of the rain forest in Mexico and South America. There is a big issue regarding timber coming into this country and people from the Mexican side that are saying we are also losing our well-being and our livelihood because we are forced by big corporations to cut down the timber and then send it here and into other parts of the world. We are talking about erosion of our environment. We are talking about degradating the quality of life for Mexicans as well. So who is winning? The big corporations, the big factories. The folks that run those operations do not live there. They live in the ivory tower, but they are taking and reaping some of the resources, the natural resources that currently exist in that country. I can tell my colleagues that Mexico still has a long way to go in terms of providing protections for the working class people there that are suffering every single day and not seeing any kind of return on their work.”