Bill Text: OR SM201 | 2012 | Regular Session | Enrolled

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Bill Title: Urging Congress to enact and President to sign Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Passed) 2012-02-13 - Filed With Secretary of State. [SM201 Detail]

Download: Oregon-2012-SM201-Enrolled.html

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     76th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2012 Regular Session

                            Enrolled

                       Senate Memorial 201

Sponsored by Senators SHIELDS, BOQUIST; Senators ATKINSON, BEYER,
  COURTNEY, DINGFELDER, FERRIOLI, GIROD, KRUSE, MONNES ANDERSON,
  NELSON, OLSEN, PROZANSKI, ROSENBAUM, TELFER, THOMSEN
  (Presession filed.)

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

Enrolled Senate Memorial 201 (SM 201-INTRO)                Page 1

  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 that more than
50,000 Oregonians have lost their jobs because of direct
offshoring or displacement by imports; and
  Whereas federal legislation known as the Trade Reform,
Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009
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 reintroduce and pass the Trade Reform, Accountability,
Development and Employment (TRADE) Act of 2009, 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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Enrolled Senate Memorial 201 (SM 201-INTRO)                Page 2

                                 Adopted by Senate February 10,
                                              2012

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                                   Robert Taylor, Secretary of
                                             Senate

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                                  Peter Courtney, President of
                                             Senate

Enrolled Senate Memorial 201 (SM 201-INTRO)                Page 3