Ensuring the Safe Use of Industrial Chemicals
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Aug. 2007 - The leaders of Canada,
Mexico and the United States have agreed to move towards ensuring the safe
manufacture and use of industrial chemicals by developing a regional
partnership for assessing and managing potential risks.
This partnership, announced today in Montebello, is the result of
discussions between U.S. President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Security and
Prosperity Partnership of North America Leaders' Summit.
The agreement establishes goals to be met by 2020, such as creating and
updating chemical inventories in all three countries, and coordinating the
management of chemicals in North America as required under a variety of
other international agreements.
By 2012, the United States will complete risk characterizations and take
action, as needed, on more than 9,000 chemicals produced in quantities
above 25,000 pounds per year, known as High Production Volume chemicals.
The 2012 goal is to ensure that these chemicals are produced and used in
ways that minimize risks to health and the environment, the three leaders
said.
This agreement will build on Canada's Chemical Management Program to
categorize chemicals for review, assessment, and management and also on
the U.S. EPA's HPV Challenge Program.
From its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, the American Chemistry
Council, ACC, representing the chemical industry, applauded the new
agreement. ACC President and CEO Jack Gerard said the agreement "supports
competitiveness and innovation while addressing concerns about chemical
safety."
Launched in 2005, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
has so far achieved a North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic
Influenza; a Regulatory Cooperation Framework; an Intellectual Property
Action Strategy; and a Trilateral Agreement for Cooperation in Energy
Science and Technology.
"Balancing our energy requirements with the stewardship of our environment
is one of the greatest challenges of our time," the three leaders said in
a joint statement today.
"We support an integrated approach to climate change, energy security and
economic development, and support the development and deployment of clean
energy technologies," they said.
Between annual meetings of the three leaders, their agency heads and
staffers work on cooperation in selected areas.
During the next year, Bush, Harper and Calderon asked their ministers to:
identify and pursue cooperative energy science and technology activities
under the newly signed Trilateral Agreement for Cooperation in Energy
and Science Technology;
reduce barriers to the deployment of new and clean technologies;
continue with efforts to align energy efficiency standards in key
products and standby power consumption;
cooperate for our mutual benefit in the development of biofuels, vehicle
fuel efficiency technologies and technologies to reduce emissions; and
share information and experience and cooperate in efforts to achieve
comparable emission measurement, reporting and verification, in order to
develop publicly available national emissions inventories. This exchange
would include sharing of emissions information on the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide, as well as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile
organic compounds, ammonia, lead and particulates.
Prime Minister Harper said the three leaders "agreed on the need for
practical solutions to our mutual environmental challenges."
Surrounded by security guards, President George W. Bush and Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper talk at Montebello.
"Our countries are already working together to develop clean and
sustainable energy and we are cooperating on national fuel efficiency
standards," he said, adding "Canada, the United States and Mexico are good
neighbors and also good friends."
In their bilateral meeting, President Bush and Prime Minister Harper
discussed the Northwest Passage, which is becoming navigable during longer
periods each year as the climate warms. Canada claims this Arctic
territory and is building new ships to defend it.
Dan Fisk, senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs with the U.S.
National Security Council told reporters today that President Bush "came
away with a far better understanding of Canada's position."
"However," said Fisk, "from the U.S. position we continue to believe that
the Northwest Passage is an international waterway, that there is
international navigational rights through the Northwest Passage."
President Bush told reporters at a press conference after the summit, "We
believe it's an international passageway. Having said that, the United
States does not question Canadian sovereignty over its Arctic islands, and
the United States supports Canadian investments that have been made to
exercise its sovereignty."
The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, "has been a tremendous
mutual success in strengthening our economies and in enhancing the
competitiveness of North America," the three leaders said.
President George W.Bush in Montebello.
President Bush said, "NAFTA, which has created a lot of political
controversy in our respective countries, has yielded prosperity. Since
NAFTA came to be, trade between our respective countries has grown from
$293 billion a year to $883 billion a year. Now, for some, those are just
numbers; for many, it's improved wages and a better lifestyle and more
hope."
Within NAFTA, the partnership will focus this year on regulatory
cooperation in the chemicals, automotive, transportation, and information
and communications technology sectors.
Safe food was an area of special concern at the Montebello meeting, and
the leaders agreed to work with our trading partners outside North America
using "a scientific risk-based approach" to identify and stop unsafe food
and products before they enter Canada, Mexico and/or the United States.
Green Party leaders in Canada and the United States warned of the dangers
of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, SPP, saying the "secretive
deal" between the three leaders is forging a closer union among them
without public input.
Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May said, "The SPP is integrating
the military, security, trade, economic, regulatory, and foreign polices
of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico without public input or Parliamentary or
Congressional scrutiny."
"The threat of widespread surveillance of citizens, greenhouse gas
emissions from tar sands development and 'super-corridors,' increased
fossil fuel dependence, privatization of water, erosion of food safety and
environmental regulations, and expanded corporate power at the expense of
economic stability for working people - these are some of the reasons we
oppose the SPP," said May.
North American Green Parties held a "Counter Summit" teach-in and strategy
session Monday in Ottawa in advance of the Montebello meeting.
Dr. Julia Willebrand, co-chair of the US Green Party's International
Committee and co-president of the Federation of Green Parties of the
Americas, said, "The Bush, Harper, and Calderón administrations are taking
their countries down a dark road to a future where decisions are made in
virtual secrecy by undemocratic supranational organizations such as the
North American Competitiveness Council."
"This group of powerful corporate leaders represents the large
transnational companies that stand to profit from the SPP's globalist
economy, an economic model which has been largely recognized as a failure
when it comes to protecting working people and the environment,"
Willebrand said.
Greens dispute claims by NAFTA proponents that NAFTA has proved successful
and that the SPP is the logical and necessary next step.
Green Parties have called for withdrawal from and renegotiation of NAFTA,
and for enactment of 'fair trade' policies where economic, social and
ecological justice take precedence over corporate profit and privilege and
the short term economic demands of investors.
Greens warn of numerous dangers if the Security and Prosperity Partnership
remains unchallenged, such as super-corridors lined with oil, gas, and
water pipelines, which will carve up arable land, damage biodiversity
across North America, and increase fossil fuel consumption and emission of
greenhouse gases.
They fear the possible military and security integration of the United
States, Canada, and Mexico, with an expansion of surveillance over private
citizens and forced subordination of Canada and Mexico to "imperial U.S.
military goals."
The Greens point to the possible "privatization and unconstrained
exploitation of natural resources" such as Mexico's state-owned oil
industry and Canadian watersheds for the benefit of corporations based in
the United States.
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