Word: methanex
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...issue will be decided, under terms of international treaties, by a panel of arbitrators, chosen in this case by the U.S. State Department and Methanex, meeting behind closed doors. A U.S. loss could be challenged in federal court--but only on narrow procedural grounds. Critics fear that a Methanex win would upend the principle that "the polluter pays." Instead, the polluter would be paid. A California senate committee questioned whether hundreds of state and local laws--from fishing-fleet fees to truck-inspection rules to a preference for recycled paper--could be challenged by foreign investors. Says state senator Sheila...
...Methanex case is complicating Bush's efforts to win "trade promotion authority," which would require Congress to vote yes or no, without amendment, on any treaty the President offered. The idea is to protect hard-bargained agreements from pork-barrel politicking. The bill passed the House by only one vote last December, as even longtime free traders worried about the potential threat to the U.S. of the Methanex case and other investor challenges. Waving 5,000 pages of trade agreements, Representative Robert Matsui, a California Democrat, argued that new treaties could affect federal laws on matters from food safety...
...stakes are high. The Administration wants to extend NAFTA to 31 more countries in Latin America. If investor protections are also offered through the World Trade Organization, Methanex-style suits could spread through the global trading system. That would open the U.S. to corporate claims from scores of countries, but the effect on Third World nations might be even more dramatic. Could a developing country stand up to a timber giant wanting to clear-cut the rain forest? A multinational retailer flouting labor laws? Says Mary Bottari, of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a liberal activist group: "The mere...
...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...
...State Department says the Methanex claim "does not remotely resemble the type of grievance" envisioned under NAFTA. But the Canadian firm is only one of more than a dozen multinationals that have taken advantage of the treaty's broad provisions. The LOEWEN GROUP, a Canadian funeral conglomerate, wants the U.S. government to pay $725 million in damages because a Mississippi jury harbored what Loewen claims were "anti-Canadian, racial and class biases" when it found the company guilty of contract fraud. METALCLAD, a California firm that was prevented from opening a toxic-waste plant in Mexico, won $15.6 million from...