Abstract
One of the major issues that arose during the debate over the passage. of the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA") concerned the impact of industrialization upon the environment of the U.S. -Mexico border. Candidate, and later President Clinton announced that he would not support NAFTA unless environmental issues were addressed. President Clinton's statements were the catalyst for the creation of two international agreements focussing on environmental issues.
The so-called "side agreement" on the environment created the Commission on Environmental Cooperation ("CEC"), which is now located in Montreal. Canada. This Commission was specifically charged with the mission of addressing the non-enforcement of environmental laws by one of the NAFTA countries, as well as long-range environmental cooperation and upward harmonization of environmental standards among the three countries.
During the negotiations that created the CEC it became clear that the cn~ironmenta1 infrastructure problems of the U.S.-Mexico border must be addressed by a separate, bilateral organization targeted to address the specific needs of border communities. As a result, Mexico and the US. agreed to create two organizations, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission ("BECC") and the North American Development Bank ("NADBank") to address environmental infrastructure needs on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
This paper will examine the creation and development of the BECC and NADBaDk in comparison to the water and wastewater infrastructure needs of the Texas border and provide an analysis of the criteria recently published by the BECC by which potential water and wastewater projects will be evaluated.
|
