Frank Pallone: “What I have been doing over the last couple of days, Mr. Chairman, is I have put together a letter that I am trying, and…”

“What I have been doing over the last couple of days, Mr. Chairman, is I have put together a letter that I am trying, and some Members have already signed and I am trying to get more Members to sign, to the President basically saying this: That it is critical for the fast track to require that environmental concerns be directly addressed in negotiated agreements, rather than allowing environmental protection to be negotiated separately in unenforceable side agreements that do not adequately protect the environment. To that end, trade agreements negotiated under fast track should also be negotiated to include enforcement mechanisms that should hold governments to set environmental protection. I am not saying even with that that fast track is acceptable, but I believe very strongly that if we were able to get these kinds of inclusions in there, at least we would have a little better protection and know that something would be done on the environment other than negotiating additional side agreements that really have had no impact. One of the things I keep saying over and over again is we have to look at NAFTA as the example.”