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Joint Meeting Summary for April 28-29, 2005
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
NATIONAL AND GOVERNMENTAL ADVISORY COMMITTEES to the
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE to the
COUNCIL OF THE COMMISION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL COOPERATION
Meeting Summary April 28-29, 2005 |
|
Washington Terrace Hotel 1515 Rhode Island Ave. Washington, DC |
| Welcome,
Introductions, and Approval of Agenda John Knox and Stephen Mahfood |
| Welcome
from Alternate Representative Jerry Clifford |
More pertinent to the CEC's work is the announcement by the three North American presidents creating the "Security and Prosperity Partnership". This partnership was designed to focus on border security, but its scope has expanded, and it now includes an environmental component. As this is a White House effort, the lead agency is the Department of State, but EPA has been working on components that fall under its jurisdiction. The next step is to deliver a list of recommendations that all three nations agree on, by late June. At the moment, however, each country is still working on developing its own positions.
The CEC is making good progress on the three pillars, although it may have underestimated the time involved in changing the focus of its efforts and negotiating that change among three countries. Mr. Clifford noted that more detailed updates on each of the pillars would be provided later in the day, as indicated on the meeting agenda.
On the topic of the previous day's round table, Mr. Clifford asked for the committee members' ideas on how the CEC can build more strategic, synergistic interactions to help leverage resources for capacity building (e.g., how to better engage academic communities, and how increase capacity at the state, community, or non-governmental organization [NGO] level).
Mr. Aigner said that, in view of some problems with investing in government agencies in Mexico that came up yesterday (such as high turnover of government employees), the CEC should probably devote most of its time and resources to the private sector and NGOs.
Mr. Clifford replied that there may be some changes in the Mexican government: for example, legislation was recently passed to create a career service.
Ms. Ortiz confirmed that this legislation was enacted in April 2004. Government employees now expect to keep their positions, as long as they certify themselves as civil servants.
Mr. Guimond suggested focusing on institutionalizing capacity. Companies may be more willing to help leverage this if it were a CEC initiative, particularly because it also fits in with their common goal of making progress in Mexico.
Mr. Collette stated that he was impressed with the work conducted by NGOs, but noted that there seemed to be little integration or communication among them; there is also no central registry that lists all these companies and their projects. He thought it would be an appropriate role for the CEC to collect and publicize these otherwise unconnected activities.
Ms. Lile thought it was encouraging that EPA is providing funding for many of these projects. A catalog of the entities funded by EPA would be useful to the CEC, which presumably wants to encourage such work, but cannot do so if it is not aware of it.
Mr. Dos Santos reiterated that it is important to institutionalize capacity building, and incorporate it into Federal and state governments. The CEC's budget is too small to fund every worthwhile effort, so it is important to take a long-term view and begin by identifying target areas for capacity building. Another important early step is examining needs in each target area (i.e., government, private sector, NGOs). A point brought up during the roundtable was that using enforcement fines to finance capacity building would not work in Mexico, because companies would lose control of any funding transferred to the government; a better alternative may be to channel these funds to the Mexican version of the National Science Foundation.
Mr. Huston acknowledged that capacity building is a long term process, but said that there are other projects that can begin right away. In Mexico, for example, supply companies produce 70% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). If large, multinational companies decide that building capacity in Mexico is important, they will fund it.
Mr. Shinn suggested focusing on incentive programs, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses that may want to be identified as doing something good for the environment. Regulatory programs are less likely to work in a country where enforcement is known to be lax.
Mr. Morell brought up another comment made at the roundtable: the presence of multinational companies is actually improving conditions in developing regions, despite initial fears that companies would take advantage of the less stringent regulations. Mexico has many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) who are likely to comply if multinationals begin to expect a certain level performance from their suppliers.
Mr. Clifford suggested that the NAC and GAC should not be concerned with reaching consensus when putting together their advice to the Agency, but rather provide a list of ideas and suggestions. He added that one of the expected challenges would be to present these suggestions to Mexico without the implication that the U.S. is interfering or imposing its ideas.
In response to a question by Mr. Knox, Mr. Clifford explained that he would like the committees' advice before the end of May.
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