WASHINGTON, D.C. –Tomorrow, the AFL-CIO will file a lawsuit against the Bush Administration, demanding that the Administration comply with legal requirements to include appropriate non-business representation on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN), the primary advisory committee on trade policy to the President.
Last week, the Bush Administration announced the nominations of 32 individuals to serve on the ACTPN. For the first time in the history of the committee (established by Congress in 1974) and in clear violation of the law, the current committee nominees include no representatives of labor, environmental, or consumer organizations.
“With these nominations,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, “the Bush White House has demonstrated a remarkable indifference to the views of anyone outside the corporate world on the future of U.S. trade policy.”
Former ACTPN members representing a diverse array of civil society interests sent a letter to President Bush today protesting the narrow corporate representation on the committee. “This defeats the entire purpose of the advisory committee system, which – at its best – could help shape U.S. trade policy so that it would serve the broad public interest, rather than simply forward an exclusively corporate agenda,” wrote the five former ACTPN members, including: John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO; George Becker, President Emeritus of the United Steelworkers of America; Jay Mazur, President Emeritus of UNITE!, the clothing and textile workers’ union; Rhoda Karpatkin, President Emeritus of the Consumers Union; and Linda Tarr-Whelan, former President and Chair of the Center for Policy Alternatives. (A copy of the letter is available from the AFL-CIO upon request.)
Congress established the committee in 1974 in order to provide broadly representative private sector advice to the president on trade policy. The law explicitly states that the membership of the committee shall include representatives of labor, environmental, and consumer interests and that the committee membership shall be “broadly representative of the key sectors and groups of the economy, particularly with respect to those sectors and groups which are affected by trade.” The law also states that appointments to the committee “shall be made without regard to political affiliation.” Past administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have respected these legal obligations.
The current White House nominees, in contrast, are drawn almost entirely from the corporate sector, plus two non-Federal government officials (the governor of Connecticut and the mayor of Warrenton, Virginia) and two academics. According to Inside U.S. Trade, the nominees include “major Republican campaign donors, free trade theologians, and a few people with close ties to USTR Robert Zoellick” (December 13, 2002).
The failure of the Bush White House to comply with its legal obligations could slow down the Administration’s ambitious trade agenda. Fast track authority requires the ACTPN to issue a report on any new trade agreements not later than thirty days after the President notifies Congress of his intent to enter into an agreement. If the ACTPN is not legally constituted, then such a report would not fulfill the fast track requirement.