Strengthens endangered species recovery while providing incentives for private landowners and increased citizen participation. With the NJ State Legislature in session till late December, we have the opportunity to pass 3 important bills, THIS YEAR, by calling the contacts listed, and asking them to support passage. As we enter the 21st century, we find a renewed drive for integration of the world's economies through global, regional, and bilateral agreements promoting liberalized trade and investment. However, the world economic expansion can be a major threat to the earth's natural systems. The effects of economic integration, as currently constituted, often undermine rather than promote sustainable development.
Trade agreements grant new, enforceable economic rights to America's biggest corporations.
But those rights are not matched with enforceable responsibilities to workers or the environment. Yet little has been done to ensure that companies meet their environmental responsibilities. Border factories still illegally dump 44 tons of hazardous waste, a quarter of what they generate, into the air, water and land every day. The suits are heard by courts which bar appeals and public submissions. Just this April, Canada's legislature banned a hazardous gasoline additive, MMT, known to damage the nervous system.