[CTC] Items on climate and the USCMA

Tue May 18 10:46:50 PDT 2021

Two items below…

First USMCA environment committee meeting scheduled for next month
By Maria Curi, Inside US Trade
5/17/2021
The first environment committee meeting under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be held virtually on June 17, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced on Monday.
The environment committee includes senior government representatives responsible for overseeing the implementation of USMCA’s environment chapter. USMCA dictates that the committee hold a meeting within a year of the deal’s entry into force on July 1, 2020.
USTR in its announcement said the committee would review the implementation of the environment chapter, discuss how each country is meeting its obligations and receive a presentation from the Commission on Environmental Cooperation <http://www.cec.org/about/agreement-on-environmental-cooperation/>. The CEC originally was established via a side deal to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The committee also will hold a virtual public session after the three governments meet, USTR said. Interested parties can submit suggestions for topics to be discussed during the committee meeting and questions for the public session by June 4, the agency added.
USMCA included an environment chapter within the text of the agreement -- a departure from NAFTA, in which environmental provisions were outlined in an annex. Including the environment chapter in the text of USMCA made its provisions stronger by subjecting them to the deal’s dispute settlement mechanisms, advocates have argued. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has committed to enforcing USMCA’s environmental obligations as the Biden administration has made combating climate change a top priority.
Before becoming USTR, Tai was chief trade counsel for House Ways & Means Committee Democrats who negotiated with the Trump administration over USMCA environmental and labor provisions, which were key to winning broad Democratic support for the deal once it was amended.
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) lamented that “there isn't much of an organized pressure or counter pressure” on combating the issue of plastic waste being dumped into the ocean. Whitehouse highlighted legislation he has introduced that would direct USTR “to consider marine debris issues when negotiating new international agreements.”
USMCA’s environmental rules and the funding appropriated for them in the U.S. implementing legislation provide “an infrastructure” that will enhance USTR’s collaboration with other government agencies to work on environmental issues like marine ocean debris, Tai responded during the hearing, pointing to U.S. environmental attaches deployed in Mexico as an example.
In remarks <https://insidetrade.com/sites/insidetrade.com/files/documents/2021/apr/wto2021_0179a.pdf> during an April 15 event sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Tai contended that “climate-friendly and sustainable agricultural production is essential to
meeting our climate and sustainability goals.”
“Our farmers and ranchers can lead the world with innovative carbon conservation practices,” Tai said, pointing to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s “ambitious ideas” on how to expand the use of cover crops and make carbon capture a mainstream conservation practice.
In response to Tai’s remarks, major U.S. agriculture groups sent her a letter <http://ncfc.org/letter/agriculture-letter-ambassador-tai-regarding-environment-climate-change/> saying “agriculture does not always get the recognition it deserves for the practices already put in place, but we continue to be committed to improving production practices to reduce our impact on the environment.”
The letter was signed by Agricultural Retailers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Seed Trade Association, the American Soybean Association, CropLife America, the Farm Credit Council, the National Cotton Council, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, the National Milk Producers Federation, the National Pork Producers Council, USA Rice and the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
“We support voluntary, market- and incentive-based policies; advancing science-based outcomes; and providing help so that rural economies can better adapt to climate change,” the groups wrote. “While you discuss the convergence of trade and the environment with your international counterparts, we look forward to engaging further with you and your staff regarding the great strides the U.S. agriculture industry has made, and continues to make, toward environmental sustainability and climate goals.”
In an email to USTR officials last week, a representative for the Teamsters union tied an ongoing USMCA dispute with Canada over its dairy tariff-rate quotas to the Biden administration’s environmental goals. The Trump administration last December initiated a dispute over Canada’s TRQ allocations, though sources last month told Inside U.S. Trade <https://insidetrade.com/node/171122>consultations have slowed down amid the presidential transition.
The Teamsters, which oppose the case against Canada, followed up on earlier meetings with USTR in a May 12 email shared with Inside U.S. Trade. The email includes analysis from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and other partners, and concludes that “USTR Katherine Tai’s stated commitment to integrate climate goals into U.S. trade policy is a welcome change. The current dispute with Canada presents a choice. The U.S. can continue pressure to expand highly emitting U.S. dairy production into the Canadian market, thus reducing less emitting Canadian dairy production and undermining both countries’ climate goals. Or the U.S. could choose to abandon this challenge and instead open the possibility of learning from the Canadian experience to consider policies designed to promote more sustainable and resilient production.”
The Teamsters representative suggested USTR “include the climate impact among the variables that will animate USTR’s approach to the contentious dairy market access issue, which we hope will finally go away.”
Tai this week will participate in virtual meetings with her Mexican and Canadian counterparts to discuss the implementation of USMCA to date more broadly. The Free Trade Commission meeting must take place within one year of the deal’s entry into force.

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ICYMI from last week….

https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2021/05/sierra-club-welcomes-biden-administration-s-commitment-integrate-paris <https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2021/05/sierra-club-welcomes-biden-administration-s-commitment-integrate-paris>
Sierra Club Welcomes Biden Administration’s Commitment to Integrate Paris Agreement into USMCA

Thursday, May 13, 2021
Contact: Contact: Carolyn Morrisroe, carolyn.morrisroe at sierraclub.org <mailto:carolyn.morrisroe at sierraclub.org>

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai indicated that the Biden Administration intends to ask Mexico and Canada to incorporate the Paris climate accord into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. During a hearing before the Ways & Means Committee on President Biden’s trade agenda, Tai said next week’s meeting with trade ministers of the other two countries would be a “great opportunity” to amend the USMCA’s list of multilateral environmental agreements to include the Paris Agreement.

In January, the majority of House Democrats sent a letter <https://pascrell.house.gov/uploadedfiles/paris_in_new_nafta_-_final.pdf> calling for USMCA to be amended to include a binding reinforcement of the Paris Agreement, in line with Sierra Club’s calls for a climate-friendly trade policy <https://www.sierraclub.org/trade/transform-trade>.

In response, Sierra Club Living Economy Program Director Ben Beachy released the following statement:

“If the United States is to meet its climate goals, we must transform toxic trade agreements that help corporations export pollution and jobs. Due to decades of outsourcing under unfair trade deals, we now import as much climate pollution as we produce in all U.S. factories combined. Instead, trade agreements should include binding labor and environmental standards to support good jobs, clean manufacturing, and a global ‘race to the top’ in climate action. 

“The Sierra Club applauds USTR Tai and the Biden Administration for taking a first step toward a more climate-friendly trade model by committing to include the Paris Agreement in USMCA -- a move backed by a broad array of congressional leaders and leading environmental groups.”

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org <http://www.sierraclub.org/>.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826

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