Word: bans
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...conflict has exploded into an international fistfight, a test case for globalization and a key issue in President Bush's effort to win new trade-negotiating powers from Congress next month. That's because METHANEX, the Canadian company that makes a key ingredient of MTBE, is challenging California's ban under the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The case has raised doubts about whether a state can protect its drinking water as it sees fit. Do such health regulations amount to a trade barrier...
Methanex wants U.S. taxpayers to compensate it for $970 million in profits it would lose as a result of a California MTBE phaseout. CEO Pierre Choquette asserts, "We believe the ban of MTBE was politically motivated" to favor the U.S.-made gasoline additive ethanol "and has no scientific merit." The company's director of investor relations, Brad Boyd, says, "California should make sure its underground gas tanks don't leak. That's what would protect the public...
Methanex further disputes California's reasons for banning MTBE, saying benzene and other gasoline components are "more hazardous." It accuses California Governor Gray Davis of ordering the ban because he received campaign contributions from a U.S. manufacturer of ethanol. Davis denies the charge. State officials cite studies showing that MTBE causes cancer in lab animals and symptoms such as headache and nausea in humans. The federal EPA is also considering a ban. Unlike other gasoline components that stick to the soil when they leak, MTBE is unusually solvent, escaping from even reinforced tanks and moving rapidly into nearby water wells...
...USCIB's Canner calls investor rights "leveling the playing field." But if the global field is leveled, can Mississippi punish fraud? Can Canada subsidize its postal service? Can Mexican towns ban toxic waste? These questions go to the heart of the debate over globalization. And they're being decided right now, behind closed doors...
...What caused the crackdown was Next's report of the existence of two hidden slush funds, totalling $100 million, set up by former President Lee Teng-hui and continued by his successor Chen Shui-ban. Next alleged politicians used the money to buy better international relations, employing long-denied "dollar diplomacy" to ensure other nations resisted mainland efforts to isolate Taiwan. Damning documents leaked to the magazine also disclosed that the country's National Security Bureau (NSB) extensively shared intelligence with the U.S. and Japan-a fact that neither wanted broadcast to prickly Beijing...