Don't Trade Away Our Health - write a letter to VP Gore

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Send a letter to Vice-President Gore (May 2000)
We need you to send the letter (see below) to Vice- President Gore. Your immediate assistance will support the European Union's draft Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment. This important initiative will help protect environmental health and safety by phasing out toxic chemicals in computers, by promoting recycling and establishing a framework for Extended Producer Responsibility.

Two US Reps. (George Miller (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and US. Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) wrote a letter to Vice President Gore urging him to defend the EU Directive. Specifically, they asked the Vice-President to "ensure that the European Union is allowed to set its own environmental and health standards, unhampered by United States Trade Representative opposition".

The Congressional letter also states: "Given the potential health and environmental benefits of the WEEE Directive on both sides of the Atlantic, we ask that you intervene to put an immediate stop to the USTR's lobbying activities. We also request a detailed account of Administration actions with regard to the WEEE directive".

Rather than working to defend and protect our health and environment, the USTR staff is supporting the AEA's position in discussions with other US and international agencies. The US Trade Representative (USTR) -- at the request of the American Electronics Association (AEA), the largest trade association of the electronics industry with more than 3000 members -- has been lobbying against the WEEE Directive. The AEA is using international trade law and the World Trade Organization as weapons to undermine important and beneficial initiative and to dictate global health and environmental policy to protect the economic interests of its members.

In addition, the USTR's position was formulated without the benefit of public involvement.

It is crucial that US activists involved in toxics, waste, recycling, incineration, corporate accountability, consumer advocacy, international trade, human rights and/or democracy issues make our voices heard before the US government adopts the myopic views of the U.S. computer industry on these important environmental issues. Take a minute and send a letter to Vice-President Gore and urge him to bring an immediate halt the USTR's lobbying activities. You can use the enclosed text as a model.

White House Fax Line - 202-456-2461
Vice President Gore's e-mail - vice-president@whitehouse.gov

(To send this letter, right click in the text box, and choose "select all" so the letter is highlighted. Right click again (in the text box) and choose "copy". Open your e-mail program and paste the text in. Then simply make the changes of including your organization, or other textual changes you wish. Please remember when you e-mail to Vice-President Gore to also send a copy of your letter to us at svtc@svtc.org and we will add your name to our website.

Dear Vice-President Gore:

We are writing to request your immediate assistance to help defend an important environmental initiative, the draft European Commission Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). This draft directive -- which is designed to address the growing problem of obsolete electronic equipment -- will help protect environmental health and safety on both sides of the Atlantic by phasing out some of the worst toxic chemicals, cleaning up the life-cycle of computer manufacturing, promoting Producer Responsibility and encouraging similar Clean Production initiatives outside Europe, particularly within the United States.

However, rather than defending and protecting our health and environment, the US Trade Representative (USTR) is lobbying on behalf of the electronics industry to oppose this directive as a barrier to international trade. We ask that you intervene to put an immediate stop to the USTR's lobbying activities because the position of the US Trade Representative was formulated without the benefit of public involvement.

The American Electronics Association (AEA) -- whose members include Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Motorola -- is using international trade law as a weapon to dictate global health and environmental policy. In a 15 page legal position paper, the AEA asserts that various provisions of the WEEE are "illegal" under international trade law and, therefore, violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

A third of a billion computers will become obsolete in the next five years.  While 90% of computer contents could be recycled, only about six percent of abandoned computers were recycled in 1998.  Out of the 1000 materials that go into computers, hundreds, (chlorinated and brominated substances, gases, metals, acids and plastic additives are highly toxic.

In his March 15, 1999 statement at a high-level WTO symposium on trade and the environment, President Clinton said, "We must do more to ensure that spirited economic competition among nations never becomes a race to the bottom. We should be leveling environmental protections up, not down." The draft WEEE directive is an excellent opportunity to place these words into action.

Make sure that weaker environmental standards are not forced upon the European Union by unfair global trade laws. At stake in this controversy are three vital environmental principles.

1. Producers must be ultimately responsible for their products. The WEEE Directive's premise is that the producer of all electronic products and electrical equipment must be financially responsible for managing their products throughout their lifecycle, including at the end of life. The public should not have to pay extra taxes for waste management costs of hazardous materials that producers choose to use in electrical and electronic equipment.

2. Trade Associations must not be allowed to dictate environmental health policy.  It is vital to support the WEEE directive's provisions for encouraging the recycling of plastics and phasing out toxic chemicals that are persistent in the environment and known health hazards. We must level environmental standards up, not down. This will help clean up the entire product chain, alleviate worker health problems, and reduce hazardous emissions to the environment not only in Europe, but in America as well.

3. U.S. policy must represent all of us, not just large corporations. The USTR has no right to lobby on behalf of corporations against the interests of the American public. We are offended to learn that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the American Electronics Association (AEA) are using the World Trade Organization (WTO) to undermine important and beneficial environmental initiatives.

The USTR is pushing the US government to take a position opposing this regulation behind closed doors and without the benefit of public notice and comment period required for proposed new regulations under US laws. Since US law requires that the federal government involve the public in setting domestic environmental standards, surely the federal government should also involve the public before attacking the positive environmental standards of other countries that will directly benefit the American public.

We call on you to reign in USTR's interference in the legitimate environmental decisions of the European Commission. Given the direct health and environmental impacts of the WEEE Directive on both sides of the Atlantic, the US government should refrain from any further official comment on this initiative until it has consulted all interested parties through public notice and comment rule-making procedures.

Yours sincerely,

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 760 N. First Street San Jose, CA 95112 Phone: +1 408-287-6707
Fax: +1 408-287-6771 e-mail: svtc@svtc.org