DAY ONE | DAY TWO | DAY THREE | DAY FOUR | WRAP UP
--Larry Fahn, Sierra Club President
Our second day on the road started early in Oregon with an interview on Oregon Public
Broadcasting, for later broadcast on some or all NPR affiliates in the
state. They wanted to hear about how CAFTA might impact environmental laws
in Oregon, allowing me to cite the case out of California where
Methanex Corp is suing the US Government under NAFTA. Methanex is suing because the State of
California had the gall to ban MTBE, a known carcinogen that has been
polluting California groundwater since it was first added to gasoline. CAFTA would extend these outrageous "investment rules,"
jeopardizing a whole host of good environmental regulations in Oregon and
Washington, including their growth management acts, the tough Oregon bottle
bill, rules prohibiting discharge of ballast water waste from ships
(protecting against the proliferation of invasive species), and
Washington's new clean car regulation, which is set to be signed into law on Friday
by Governor Gregoire.
Steelworker boss Dave Foster and I then drove north to Vancouver, Washington
where we joined Cascade Chapter legislative chair Holly Forrest and had a
productive meeting with Congressman Brian Baird's district director.
Congressman Baird has newborn twin baby boys in DC, and expressed his regrets for not being able to join us personally.
His staff reminded us that the Congressman was once a Sierra Club group chair in
southern Washington, and that he considers environmental protection a top priority.
We are hopeful that our meeting was beneficial, especially since labor unions and environmentlists are among his most loyal supporters.
From there we had a two hour dive up to Tacoma, where we met with the
editorial board at The Tacoma News Tribune. They asked some tough
questions, but Dave and I both felt that we made a number of important
points, and had them nodding in agreement on more than one occasion. Editorial page editor Dave Seago told us that they planned to run dueling PRO and CON CAFTA op/eds quite soon. While we are not sure what they are going to write, they were certainly aware of the 11 year track record of false promises delivered by NAFTA.
We spent an hour or so in the afternoon catching up on e-mail, and making
phone calls from the Pierce County Audubon office, which has a very
relaxing creek and pond in the back. I flipped through some of their bird guides
and wondered how long it would take for revisions to reflect the fact that
the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct for the past 60 years,
is now known to still inhabit some remote bayous in Arkansas.
After a wonderful dinner near the Tacoma port and harbor, Dave and I spoke
at another town hall meeting in Fife, Washington. A good size gathering of Sierra
Club members, with a smattering of steelworkers, and one talkative
supporter of Lyndon LaRouche greeted us at the local community center.
After a lively discussion, several Sierra Club members joined the
Steelworkers as associate members, and a few steelworkers joined the Sierra
Club. This Blue/Green thing is really starting to gel.
As in Portland last night, the crowd was quite receptive, almost everyone
filled out postcards, and quite a few audience members committed to writing
letters to the editor and to their local Congressmen: Smith, Dicks and Larson.
In the late evening hours we hit the road once again, driving up to Seattle
where day 3 of our tour unfolds in a few short hours. En route we listened
to the fourth quarter of the Seattle SuperSonics NBA playoff game, in which
the home team eliminated the Sacramento Kings and moved into the 2nd
round. Hopefully the boistrous Seattle fans won't keep us up all night.
There's a lot of whooping and hollering outside right now, and it's past
midnight.
Til tomorrow ...
...
--Dave Foster, Director, USW, District #11
Today we made three stops in Washington on the Sierra/Steelworker CAFTA tour, visiting Congressman Brian Baird’s office in Vancouver, then heading up I-5 to an editorial board meeting with The Tacoma News Tribune, and a town hall meeting this evening in Fife, Washington.
Baird’s office is in a restored Victorian in the historic district of Vancouver. The setting reminded me of the struggles we’ve had in the aluminum industry, both in Vancouver and nearby Longview, where over 1,000 steelworkers have lost their jobs, in part from our country’s failed trade policies.
Larry Fahn and I make the point to Baird’s staff that defeating CAFTA is important because it is a symbol of our government’s unwillingness to come to terms with the failed promises of NAFTA. Anything less than a solid “no” vote will ratify the view that trade agreements should not be a vehicle for elevating the economic and environmental standards of all peoples.
Later this evening in our town hall meeting I am struck again by how many people in America are convinced that we are headed in a fundamentally wrong direction but whose imagination has simply not been captured by the progressive movement. That is the underlying challenge to the Steelworkers and the Sierra Club -- to pose our solutions to globalization in a way that convince and excite.
When I complained again that, “I am tired of having to spend all my time defending the New Deal,” I was surprised at the applause. Americans are hungry for a vision of the future. They don’t want to discard the New Deal and its wonderful programs, but they do want us to provide them with solutions on how to build a global economy based on principles of fairness and sustainability. We have our work cut out for us.
Photos: Susan Knight/Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.
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