Bush Administration Erases U.S. Borders With Mexico and Canada

HumanEventsOnline ^ | 06/28/2006 | Jerome R. Corsi

[NapkinUser]

The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), signed by President Bush with Mexico and Canada in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005, was fundamentally an agreement to erase our borders with Mexico and Canada.

As I have documented below, the SPP “working groups” organized within the U.S. Department of Transportation are signing trilateral memoranda of understanding and other agreements with Mexico and Canada designed to accomplish the open borders goal incrementally, below the radar of mainstream media attention, thereby avoiding public scrutiny. Congress is largely unaware that SPP exists, let alone knowledgeable about the extensive work being done behind the scenes by the executive branch to advance the agenda articulated by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) to establish a North American Union as a new regional super-government by 2010.

The June 2005 “Report to Leaders” references that the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America was announced at the Waco summit in March 2005. Yet, the SPP declaration was neither a treaty nor a law. The legal status of the declaration was not much more than a press release issued by President Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin. Still, somehow SPP.gov conveys the impression that the Waco declaration created de facto a new NAFTA-plus legal status between the three countries that is designated the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” or “SPP” for short.

Evidently using this quasi-press release as legal justification, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has proceeded to organize extensive “working groups,” drawing freely from the executive branch. These SPP working groups are housed under the auspices of the SPP program in the NAFTA office, as directed by Geri Word, a DOC administrator. The June 2005 SPP “Report to Leaders” makes clear the extensive implementing work already undertaken:

In carrying out your instructions, we established working groups under both agendas of the Partnership -- Security and Prosperity. We held roundtables with stakeholders, meetings with business groups and briefing sessions with legislatures, as well as with other relevant political jurisdictions. The result is a series of detailed actions and recommendations designed to increase the competitiveness of North America and the security of our people.

Ms. Word confirmed by telephone that the membership of these “working groups” had not been published, not even on the Internet. Neither have minutes or transcripts of the many meetings with “stakeholders” and others been published, nor the “actions and recommendations” of the working groups. This revelation prompted a Freedom of Information Act request designed to bring these materials into the light of congressional public scrutiny. I also cannot find U.S. congressmen or senators who will identify any specific congressional examination or oversight that have been exercised over these SPP working groups that apparently have been convened to implement what amounts to only a joint press release declared from the trilateral summit in Waco.

Also found in the June 2005 “Report to Leaders” is that that the SPP working groups organized in DOC are reporting to three U.S. cabinet secretaries: Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Comparable cabinet-level working groups are referenced to government websites in Canada and in Mexico.

More than 20 working groups are identified in the June 2005 “Report to Leaders” and decisions have been made to open U.S. borders and skies to virtually unlimited “migration” and trade from Canada and Mexico.

Regarding “open skies,” three working groups are working on aviation issues, groups designated as “Aviation Safety,” “Airspace Capacity,” and “Harmonized Air Navigation Systems.” I am told that a tri-lateral agreement to create a North American Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) was signed in 2005, and that five WAAS stations were planned to be put in place in Canada and Mexico in 2005. Implementing WAAS in Mexico and Canada involved sharing the U.S. Global Positioning System with Mexico and Canada. I am told that the three countries executed a Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) agreement in January 2005 to allow for Mexican and Canadian aircraft to confirm to U.S. air spacing requirements. I found that the three countries released a North American Aviation on a Joint Strategy for the implementation of performance-based navigation in North America. This initiative included Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) in North America.

None of the referenced agreements are found on the SPP website. Yet, the working groups on aviation appear to have already accomplished opening U.S. skies to free and unrestricted navigation by Mexican and Canadian aircraft. It could be concluded that aviation authorities in Mexico and Canada have been given the tools to identify the location of all aircraft flying over the United States at any time, including military aircraft. I found no discussion on the SPP website that establishes the SPP aviation working groups were acting within specific authority granted by Congress, or even that the SPP aviation working groups were reporting to Congress.

Later in the June 2005 “Report to Leaders” I found that SPP working groups have already established a “trusted traveler” program for North America, including procedures “to enhance the use of biometrics in screening travelers destined to North America with a view to developing compatible biometric border and immigration systems.” Moreover, “a single, integrated global enrollment program for North American trusted travelers” would be implemented within the next 36 months.

These descriptions suggest that all “trusted citizens” of the U.S., Mexico and Canada would be considered “trusted citizens of North America,” issued the type of biometric identification that would make crossing the border as simple as passing your credit card through a charge-out terminal at a retail store. Once these procedures are fully in place, the SPP working groups will have eliminated “illegal immigration” for the most part. By definition, all “trusted travelers” in the three countries would be permitted to “migrate,” and supposedly to work, wherever in North America they choose to be. Again, there is no SPP reference to congressional authorizing legislation or oversight.

In reference to commercial truck traffic in North America, the June 2005 “Report to Leaders” notes that FAST lanes are being developed at North American ports of entry such that within 12 months “trusted trade” commercial trucks with SENTRI electronic identification will be permitted rapid entrance into the United States. This will allow Mexican trucks carrying containers from China off-loaded in Mexican ports such as Lazaro Cardenas to pass through the border at Laredo, Tex., as fast as a U.S. car today equipped with an E-Z Pass zips through toll stops on U.S. limited access highways. Again, there is no SPP reference to Congress.

SPP “working group” executive branch activity expands over every facet of commerce, trade, environment, and health imaginable -- ranging from e-commerce, to “a fully integrated auto sector,” to North American harmonized energy and steel policies, to clean air, a reliable food supply, and “a healthier North America.” Throughout the document there are references to “North America” as the province for the ultimate planning and regulations, always with an assumption that the current disparate regulations of the United States, Mexico and Canada will be “harmonized” or “integrated” into a trilateral structure of common and compatible regulations.

None of the many “memoranda of understanding,” “trilateral agreements,” or other accords to which the June 2005 report refers are printed in the report or listed through links to Internet addresses where the relevant compacts can be reviewed.

What the SPP June 2005 “Report to Leaders” documents is the knitting together of a new regional super-government, the North American Union, being accomplished in executive branch closed committees whose membership remain unnamed. The United States has never experienced a coup d’etat, let alone a coup d’etat pulled off by the executive branch under cover of “working groups.” Yet, what has been described in the June 2005 SPP “Report to Leaders” demands being scrutinized to see if that charge is here supportable.

I have filed a FOIA request to get the information needed to determine exactly what is going on within the Bush Administration's SPP policy. Is the United States being replaced by a North American Union? This is a question Congress should also demand be answered. Why aren’t congressional hearings being scheduled?

If the plan is to evolve the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America into a new regional North American Union super-government through executive action, the American people have a Constitutional right to know the truth. Is what is going on within SPP.gov is in accordance with the U.S. Constitution definition of executive branch rights and responsibilities, or not?

President Bush needs to come forward and explain SPP to the American people, explicitly and directly, and he needs to do so soon.

Mr. Corsi is the author of several books, including "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" (along with John O'Neill), "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil" (along with Craig R. Smith), and "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians." He is a frequent guest on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show. He will soon co-author a new book with Jim Gilchrist on the Minuteman Project.

[Kenny Bunk]

Law comes from the legislative and policy comes from the executive. That is our constitutional system.

Law and/or Policy come from any one of the three branches of government that is smart enough, or powerful enough at any given moment, to get the law, or policy, it wants by the other two branches. And don't ignore regulations. They're really neither law, nor policy, and nobody really knows how they happen sometimes, but you had better obey them!

That's the art of politics in America

[american spirit]

I saw that interview also and I wish Lou would've pinned him down more as to how they've determined there's so much illegal immigrant benefit fraud going on......I believe the #'s are just so massive they don't want the American people to know just how bad their own gov't has screwed them to lavish so much on people who really deserve nothing from us. I'd sure like to find out more on this fraud issue.......any ideas where that data could be found because I don't think the GAO will have much to say on the whole matter.

[jmc813]

What is your opinion of the Law of the Sea Treaty?

[Smartass]

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The north americain trade corridors

 

(Click a region)

Following the implementation of NAFTA, coalitions of interest have been formed in order to promote specific transport channels, to develop the infrastructures of these channels and to propose jurisdictional amendments to facilitate the crossing of borders. These coalitions include businesses, government agencies, civil organizations, metropolitan areas, rural communities and also individuals, wishing to strengthen the commercial hubs of their regions. The North American trade corridors are bi- or tri-national channels for which various cross-border interests have grouped together in order to develop or consolidate the infrastructures. The North American corridors are considered multimodal in the sense that they bring into play different modes of transport in succession. The infrastructures may include roads, highways, transit routes, airports, pipelines, railways and train stations, river canal systems and port facilities, telecommunications networks and teleports.

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The Pacific corridor

The Pacific corridor includes the entire geographic band formed by the Rocky Mountain range and the Pacific coast. A huge transport network (highways, railways, airports and port infrastructures) facilitates trade between Western Canada, the U.S. East Coast and Mexico. The traffic in the Pacific corridor mainly uses Highway I-5 in the United States, which joins together the major cities along the Pacific coast. At the U.S.-Mexican border, the corridor passes through two major ports of entry: San Diego/Tijuana, the busiest crossing point on the entire border, and Calexico/Mexicali, where there is a high concentration of maquiladoras.

To the north, Washington State and British Columbia have established the U.S.-Canada International Mobility and Trade Corridor in order to facilitate cross-border trade at the 4 land-based crossing points there between Canada and the United States. NAFTA encouraged the creation of a network of business people in the Pacific corridor. The Rocky Mountain Corridor, for example, is an association of small and medium businesses in the three countries, doing business in the region. North of the 49th parallel, two initiatives aim to develop the trade potential of the corridor: the north-west corridor aiming to link Western Canada with the trade flows of NAFTA, and the Alaska Railroad connection, project, aiming to facilitate land-based access to Alaska.

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The central western corridor

The central western corridor includes the largest concentration of maquiladoras and the 2nd largest trade volumes of all the North American corridors. It uses one of the oldest trade routes on the continent, nicknamed the “Camino Real”, or “King’s Road”. The route links Chihuahua in Mexico to Denver, Colorado, via the “Paso del Norte”, the ports of entry of El Paso/Ciudad Juarez between Chihuahua and Texas, and Santa Teresa in New Mexico. The surface trade flows (by truck and rail) circulate along Highway I-25 in the United States which, together with Highway I-90, brings the corridor north to Montana. Plans are to continue the Camino Real to Great Falls, where the corridor could join up with Canamex, a North American highway project, to enter Canada.

Canamex is a planned four-lane highway extending from Mexico City to Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. The project has recently received the support of a certain number of states and provinces including Arizona, Sonora and Alberta. The Canadian Government is providing financial support for the building of the North South Trade Corridor in Alberta, the Canadian section of Canamex. The U.S. Congress has designated the completion of Canamex as a high priority in the American road system. Canamex currently uses Highway I-15 in the United States. The external relations secretariat of Mexico has taken on the promotion of the project.

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The central eastern corridor

The central eastern region has two trade corridors, one urban, which passes through the largest North American cities and the industrial basins of the central eastern region, and another which is rural and which passes through the Great Plains in the U.S. and through the Canadian Praries. The urban corridor of NAFTA brings half of the North American population to within a single day’s journey by highway between Montréal, Canada, and Mexico. The corridor passes through the industrial stronghold of Canada and its largest market. It enters the United States at Port Huron and at Windsor, where it crosses the Ambassador bridge, the busiest bridge in North America, to join Detroit, Michigan, where the giants of the automobile industry are located. In the United States, the urban corridor follows “Corridor 18”, which extends to the lower Rio Grande valley in Texas, through Indianapolis, Indiana and Memphis, Tennessee.

The second corridor includes the Great Plains: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas; and the Canadian Prarie provinces: Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. A certain number of associations have been formed following the creation of NAFTA, in order to revitalize the rural communities of the central eastern region, by taking advantage of the transcontinental trade flows. The Central North American Trade Corridor Association, The Northern Great Plains Initiative, the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor an the Mid-Continent Trade Corridor are networks of business people, civil organizations and government agencies aiming to foster growth and employment in the central eastern region by means of a direct transcontinental link between Canada, the United States and Mexico. A network of cities, the North American International Trade Corridor Partnership (NAITCP), aims to build a huge regional market by holding regular trilateral meetings between member cities, and by facilitating contact between businesses in the corridor. In particular, the NAITCP has put together a huge directory of enterprises in the corridor, which may be consulted on-line, and organizes virtual trade missions.

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The Atlantic corridor

The Atlantic corridor includes four economic areas: (1) the Canada-U.S. East Coast; (2) the Champlain-Husdon corridor; (3) the Appalachian region and (4) the Gulf of Mexico. The corridor provides an intermodal transport system linking a 4-lane north-south highway, 3 major North American rail networks, 14 interstate highway systems, 6 interprovincial systems, one trans-Canadian highway and all the marine and airport facilities of the Atlantic coast. Transcontinental trade along this corridor uses the corridor of the Gulf of Mexico or the maritime routes of the U.S. East Coast.

The first area includes all the trade travelling along the U.S. East Coast on Highway I-95. It has the appearance of a geographic band about 5,500 km long and 50 km wide, passing through a large number of jurisdictions. Indeed, the area includes a population of over 55 million inhabitants spread out across 4 Canadian provinces and in 188 counties in 13 American states. Another part of the north-east trade passes through the Champlain-Hudson trade corridor. This corridor extends from Québec City to New York City. The Champlain/Lacolle border crossing is one of the three largest commercial ports of entry between Canada and the United States. The corridor between Québec and New York possesses advanced transport infrastructures that include Canadian Highways 20 and 15, U.S. Highway I-87, a fully modernized rail network and marine channels. The Appalachian region follows the contours of the mountain range that runs from the south of New York State to northern Mississippi. It covers over 518,000 km2 and includes a population of 23 million people, 42% of whom are in rural areas (as compared to 20% of the U.S. population as a whole). The highway infrastructure of the Appalachian region – the Appalachian Development Highway System – supports an international Appalachian corridor linking Ontario to the southern extremity of Florida, passing through Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk and Charlotte. The Continental 1coalition has the aim of developing an international corridor for trade and tourism between Toronto, Ontario and Miami, Florida. Finally, the Gulf Corridor links the three Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas to the entire north-eastern part of the continent. It passes through the cities of Monterrey, San Antonio, Austin, Houston and Baton Rouge, to join the traffic of the Atlantic coast. The border crossing at Nuevo Laredo/Laredo between Nuevo León and Texas is the busiest U.S.-Mexico border crossing, with over 3 million trucks per year.

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[jmc813]

Man you are so 'Big Government is OK' delusional.

He's a George Bush lackey. What do you expect?

[hedgetrimmer]

That would definitely preclude the formation of a North American Union, wouldn't it?

But the evildoers will so enmesh us with these other countries that we no longer can be considered sovereign. Thats why those of us who want America's Independence preserved are in vehement opposition to the SPP and the NAU.

[jmc813]

Because, while on the internet, I ACTUALLY ACT LIKE A CONSERVATIVE, meaning I use logic

Maybe you do on other topics, but on stuff like this you sure as hell don't.

[jmc813]

Instead, you brought it on yourselves by acting like crazy people over NOTHING. It's NOTHING.

[jmc813]

What is your opinion of the Law of the Sea Treaty?

[saganite]

I haven't seen any logic from the chicken littles on this thread who think the sky is falling because of this. M in O makes tremendous good sense compared to them.

[Smartass]

Planning

FHWA > HEP > Planning > NHS

NHS High Priority Corridors

Background

Beginning with the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), corridors have been designated in Federal transportation legislation as high priority corridors on the National Highway System (NHS) for inclusion in the 163,000-mile approved NHS as specific routes or general corridors. The ISTEA designated 21 corridors. Subsequent legislation added additional corridors and by the end of 2005, there were over 80 such corridors (including corridors that are subsumed or partly subsumed in other high priority corridors.) Some of the corridors are entirely within a single State such as Urban Highway Corridor along M-59 in Michigan or the Birmingham, Alabama Northern Beltline. Other corridors are multi-State such as the East-West Transamerica Corridor from Virginia tthrough Kansas or the I-73/74 North-South Corridor from South Carolina through Michigan. Some corridors are along highways that are already essentially completed and carrying traffic such as Economic Lifeline Corridor along I-15 and I-40 in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Other corridors are generally along the path of anticipated future highways such as the corridor from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, to the Lower Rio Grande Valley between Texas and Mexico. Finally, some of these corridors are described in detail in legislation, such as the the Dalton Highway from Deadhorse, Alaska to Fairbanks, Alaska. Others are broadly defined such as the Everett-Tacoma FAST [Freight Action Strategy for Everett-Seattle-Tacoma] Corridor in Washington State and some corridors are defined by reference to other legislation such as the Georgia Developmental Highway System Corridors identified in section 32-4-22 of the Official Code of Georgia, Annotated.

Funding - ISTEA

Section 1105(f) of ISTEA authorized funding for fiscal years 1992 through 1997 for some specific high priority corridor segments, and Section 1105(h) authorized some additional funding for high priority corridor feasibility and design studies. NHS, STP and Bridge Program funds authorized by ISTEA may be used to fund improvements to high priority corridors. In certain instances, Interstate Maintenance funds authorized by ISTEA may be used to fund improvements to some high priority corridor routes.

Funding - TEA-21

Section 1602 of TEA-21 authorized funding for fiscal years 1998 through 2003 for some specific high priority corridor segments. Also, formula funds for the NHS, STP, Bridge Program, and in certain instances, Interstate Maintenance authorized by TEA-21 were used to fund improvements to high priority corridors. In addition, beginning in FY 1999, the planning and development of high priority corridors was eligible for funding under the discretionary National Corridor Planning and Development Program.

Funding - SAFETEA-LU

Various sections for SAFETEA-LU provide funds for these high priority corridors. For example, formula funds for the NHS, STP, Bridge Program, the Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program and in certain instances, Interstate Maintenance may be used to fund improvements to high priority corridors. Also, some projects specifically identified under section 1301 (Projects of Regional and National Significance), 1302 (National Corridor Infrastructure Improvement program) and 1701 (High Priority Projects program) will support improvements to these corridors.

Designations as Interstates Routes

Section 1105(e) of the ISTEA, as amended, designates all or portions of fourteen high priority corridors as future parts of the Interstate system and authorizes the Secretary to add segments of the corridors to the Interstate System when certain criteria are met.

Location of Corridors

Statutory listing of Corridor Descriptions

Corridor numbers correspond to Statutory listing in Section 1105(c) of ISTEA, as amended

View a larger version (193 KB, 1056x816) or PDF (1.2 MB) for printing.

To view PDF files, you need the Acrobat® Reader®.

NHS High Priority Corridors designated as Future Interstates

View a larger version (174 KB, 958x730) or Adobe PDF (395 KB) for printing.

Information valid as of April 2006.
Some corridors subject to subsequent adjustment where statutory description is general.

Contact

Martin Weiss, martin.weiss@fhwa.dot.gov, (202)366-5010

  This page last modified on May 4, 2006

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[hedgetrimmer]

I haven't seen any logic from the chicken littles on this thread who think the sky is falling because of this.

No one said the sky is falling, except maybe you. You need to read more carefully. Please refute the article. That would be a start.

[hedgetrimmer]

FYI

Rethinking North American Integration

Getting citizens to submit to north american integration, is merely a marketing problem, with a little "values adjustment" thrown in.

[1rudeboy]

Haven't read it.

[jmc813]

However, if a Marxist clymer takes over, Mexico could implode in a heartbeat and then we'll have some really interesting problems.

I hate to say it, but I really am beginning to think that might be the only solution. Corruption is so deeply ingrained in Mexican society and government that a bloody mess might be the only thing capable of stopping it. :-(

[jmc813]

Here's a brief synopsis.

[Smartass]

The heart of the argument is: Jerome Corsi wants to prove or disapprove whether the SPP was legally setup, with congressional oversight. Documents subpoenaed under the FOIA will show this to be true, or untrue! We are looking for the truth?

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North American Union Would Trump U.S. Supreme Court

by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted Jun 19, 2006

The Bush Administration is pushing to create a North American Union out of the work on-going in the Department of Commerce under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in the NAFTA office headed by Geri Word. A key part of the plan is to expand the NAFTA tribunals into a North American Union court system that would have supremacy over all U.S. law, even over the U.S. Supreme Court, in any matter related to the trilateral political and economic integration of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Right now, Chapter 11 of the NAFTA agreement allows a private NAFTA foreign investor to sue the U.S. government if the investor believes a state or federal law damages the investor’s NAFTA business.

Under Chapter 11, NAFTA establishes a tribunal that conducts a behind closed-doors “trial” to decide the case according to the legal principals established by either the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes or the UN’s Commission for International Trade Law. If the decision is adverse to the U.S., the NAFTA tribunal can impose its decision as final, trumping U.S. law, even as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. laws can be effectively overturned and the NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal can impose millions or billions of dollars in fines on the U.S. government, to be paid ultimately by the U.S. taxpayer.

On Aug. 9, 2005, a three-member NAFTA tribunal dismissed a $970 million claim filed by Methanex Corp., a Canadian methanol producer challenging California laws that regulate against the gasoline additive MTBE. The additive MTBE was introduced into gasoline to reduce air pollution from motor vehicle emissions. California regulations restricted the use of MTBE after the additive was found to contaminate drinking water and produce a health hazard. Had the case been decided differently, California’s MTBE regulations would have been overturned and U.S. taxpayers forced to pay Methanex millions in damages.

While this case was decided favorably to U.S. laws, we can rest assured that sooner or later a U.S. law will be overruled by the NAFTA Chapter 11 adjudicative procedure, as long as the determinant law adjudicated by the NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals continues to derive from World Court or UN law. Once a North American Union court structure is in place can almost certainly predict that a 2nd Amendment challenge to the right to bear arms is as inevitable under a North American Union court structure as is a challenge to our 1st Amendment free speech laws. Citizens of both Canada and Mexico cannot freely own firearms. Nor can Canadians or Mexicans speak out freely without worrying about “hate crimes” legislation or other political restrictions on what they may choose to say.

Like it or not, NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals already empower foreign NAFTA investors and corporations to challenge the sovereignty of U.S. law in the United States. Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) has been quoted as saying, “When we debated NAFTA, not a single word was uttered in discussing Chapter 11. Why? Because we didn’t know how this provision would play out. No one really knew just how high the stakes would get.” Again, we have abundant proof that Congress is unbelievably lax when it comes to something as fundamental as reading or understanding the complex laws our elected legislators typically pass.

Under the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) plan expressed in May 2005 for building NAFTA into a North American Union, the stakes are about to get even higher. A task force report titled “Building a North American Community” was written to provide a blueprint for the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America agreement signed by President Bush in his meeting with President Fox and Canada’s then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005.

The CFR plan clearly calls for the establishment of a “permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution” as part of the new regional North American Union (NAU) governmental structure that is proposed to go into place in 2010. As the CFR report details on page 22:

The current NAFTA dispute-resolution process is founded on ad hoc panels that are not capable of building institutional memory or establishing precedent, may be subject to conflicts of interest, and are appointed by authorities who may have an incentive to delay a given proceeding. As demonstrated by the efficiency of the World Trade Organization (WTO) appeal process, a permanent tribunal would likely encourage faster, more consistent and more predictable resolution of disputes. In addition, there is a need to review the workings of NAFTA’s dispute-settlement mechanism to make it more efficient, transparent, and effective.

Robert Pastor of American University, the vice chairman of the CFR task force report, provided much of the intellectual justification for the formation of the North American Union. He has repeatedly argued for the creation of a North American Union “Permanent Tribunal on Trade and Investment.” Pastor understands that a “permanent court would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law.” Notice, Pastor says nothing about U.S. business law or the U.S. Supreme Court. In the view of the globalists pushing toward the formation of the North American Union, the U.S. is a partisan nation-state whose limitations of economic protectionism and provincial self-interest are outdated and as such must be transcended, even if the price involves sacrificing U.S. national sovereignty.

When it comes to the question of illegal immigrants, Pastor’s solution is to erase our borders with Mexico and Canada so we can issue North American Union passports to all citizens. In his testimony to the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 9, 2005, Pastor made this exact argument: “Instead of stopping North Americans on the borders, we ought to provide them with a secure, biometric Border Pass that would ease transit across the border like an E-Z pass permits our cars to speed though toll booths.”

Even Pastor worries about the potential for North American Unions to overturn U.S. laws that he likes. Regarding environmental laws, Pastor’s testimony to the Trilateral Commission in November 2002 was clear on this point: “Some narrowing or clarification of the scope of Chapter 11 panels on foreign investment is also needed to permit the erosion of environmental rules.” Evidently it did not occur to Pastor that the way to achieve the protection he sought was to leave the sovereignty of U.S. and the supremacy of the U.S. Supreme Court intact.

The executive branch under the Bush Administration is quietly putting in place a behind-the-scenes trilateral regulatory scheme, evidently without any direct congressional input, that should provide the rules by which any NAFTA or NAU court would examine when adjudicating NAU trade disputes. The June 2005 report by the SPP working groups organized in the U.S. Department of Commerce, clearly states the goal:

We will develop a trilateral Regulatory Cooperative Framework by 2007 to support and enhance existing, as well as encourage new cooperation among regulators, including at the outset of the regulatory process.

We wonder if the Bush Administration intends to present the Trilateral Regulatory Cooperative Framework now being constructed by SPP.gov to Congress for review in 2007, or will the administration simply continue along the path of knitting together the new NAU regional governmental structure behind closed doors by executive fiat? Ms. Word affirms that the membership of the various SPP working group committees has not been published. Nor have the many memorandums of understanding and other trilateral agreements created by these SPP working groups been published, not even on the Internet.

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Copyright © 2006 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

 

[Smartass]

Thank you...

[1rudeboy]

The same court which just today trumped the President's Constitutional War powers with their lame liberal interpretation . . . .

blah blah blah. I haven't read that opinion yet, either, but the logic that allows for your sort of reasoning (your citation A is suspect because the Court said this in B) isn't very logical at all.

Let's see the cite to that.

If you say please next time, I might work a little faster. The District Court opinion is here. The 11th Circuit dismissed, and remanded with orders to dismiss and vacate here, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari (I am too bored to look it up). The citation for the appellate decision is Made in the USA Foundation v. United States, 242 F.3d 1300 (11th Cir. 2001), I believe, but cannot confirm.