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GAC Advice Letter - May 19, 2005
| U.S. Governmental Advisory Committee Independent Federal Advisors on the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation |
Designated Federal Officer |
Committee Members
Charles Collette Michael J. Colvin Lisa Gover Robert Huston Karl Kalbacher Sarah D. Lile James R. Matz Ricardo Martinez Placido Dos Santos Harvey Rubin Colin Soto
|
The Honorable Stephen L. Johnson Administrator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20460 Dear Administrator Johnson: The Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) to the U.S. Representative to the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) met from April 27 through April 29th, 2005, in Washington, D.C. It is my pleasure to submit to you the following report from our meeting. This letter provides advice on four major topics: 1) Capacity Building, 2) the CEC’s Operational Plan and Budget and its relation to the Ten-Year Review recommendations, 3) the Article 10(6) process, and 4) issues related to information sharing and the use of GAC expertise. First, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on becoming the 11th Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We look forward to working with you and providing you relevant and timely advice. In addition, we would like to express our appreciation to all of the private sector representatives who provided valuable information on environmental capacity building activities in Mexico. We especially want to thank three members of the National Advisory Committee who were instrumental in making the Business Roundtable a success, namely Aldo Morell, from DuPont, Rich Guimond, from Motorola and Adam Greene, from the U.S. Council for International Business. We also want to recognize the work of EPA’s Office
of Cooperative Environmental Management for their hard work
in organizing our meetings. We appreciate the participation
of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and EPA’s
Office of International Affairs. The information they provided
was very useful in developing our advice. Doug Wright’s
presentation on behalf of the CEC Secretariat was also very
useful in understanding the current status of the budget
and the Commission’s strategic direction. In addition
we would like to thank Dinker Desai, a member of Joint Public
Advisory Committee for participating in our meeting. |
Administrative support for the
GAC is provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Office of Cooperative Environmental Management
Mail Code 1601E, 655 15th St. Suite 800 Washington, D.C. 20005
(t)202-233-0072 (f) 202-233-0060
We spent most of our time on the topic of environmental capacity building which is one of the guiding pillars in the new CEC strategic plan. Our meeting included a one-day Business Roundtable to examine successful environmental capacity building initiatives by the private sector and others in Mexico. The Roundtable brought together senior industry and multilateral organizations to learn about successful environmental partnerships. The roundtable included a wide spectrum of speakers ranging from DuPont, Motorola, to the World Bank and USAID. Both the GAC and NAC members were very impressed with the caliber of speakers and presentations. Please see attachment A for a copy of the Roundtable agenda.
We hope our advice is useful in developing U.S. positions on capacity building and for your preparations for the CEC Council Session in Quebec City, Canada on June 21-23. If your schedule permits, we would very much welcome the opportunity to meet with you there, as the GAC did last year. We would also like to pursue a joint meeting of the advisory committees, as we have traditionally done in the past.
Sincerely,
Stephen M. Mahfood, Chair
Governmental Advisory Committee
cc: Judith Ayres, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office
of International Affairs
Jerry Clifford, Deputy Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of International
Affairs
John Knox, Chair, U.S. National Advisory Committee
Arturo Duran, Chair, Joint Public Advisory Committee
Jean Perras, Chair, Canadian National Advisory Committee
Members of the U.S. Governmental Advisory Committee:
| Charles Collette Michael Colvin Lisa Gover Robert Huston Karl Kalbacher Colin Soto |
Sarah D. Lile James R. Matz Ricardo Martinez Harvey Rubin Placido Dos Santos |
Governmental Advisory Committee
to the U.S. Representative to the
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Advice 2005-1: Environmental Capacity Building
As you know, the CEC is going through a process of deep introspection
to see how it can improve the impacts of its initiatives. The
Ten-Year Review of the North American Agreement on Environmental
Cooperation and the NAFTA recommended among other things that: “the
CEC should seek a more systematic engagement of the business
community.” Thus, the Business Roundtable was a way to
make this a reality by beginning the engagement.
During our Roundtable meeting we heard presentations from private
sector representatives, multilateral organizations, and foundations
on the subject of successful environmental capacity activities
in Mexico. We were quite impressed with the wide-array of successful
projects on the ground in Mexico. We saw significant potential
for collaboration among the different non-governmental entities
working in Mexico. The CEC can play an important catalyst role
in fostering that collaboration. We recommend that the U.S. support
the CEC role of catalyst and empower the Secretariat to take the
lead in aligning private sector capacity building activities.
We recommend that the U.S. share with the CEC Council the various presentations and summary of the NAC/GAC Roundtable meeting. The CEC should serve as an information clearinghouse on capacity building projects throughout North America. In the short-term, we recommend that the CEC develop a compilation of successful environmental capacity building partnerships on their website.
We are also highly supportive of an initial CEC capacity building conference; bringing together 12 to 15 companies and/or organizations to start the process of developing synergies among existing private sector capacity building efforts. The CEC can serve as the catalyst that ties together a lot of the current capacity building activities in the region. The CEC can play a key role in developing a strategic approach to capacity building. Also, we feel it is important that the U.S. allow this process to move forward without setting too many walls or prescriptive guidelines. Organizations involved in capacity building are doing the work based on their enlightened self-interest. We recommend that the U.S. support this collaborative exercise in order to create critical mass for future productive action. We are mindful of the political realities in the NAFTA countries and support the CEC developing strong ties in the private sector, foundations, and academia, which will provide long-term sustainability for capacity building initiatives.
Governmental Advisory Committee
to the U.S. Representative to the
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Advice 2005-2: CEC Program Plan & Ten-Year Review and Assessment Committee (TRAC)
We would like to commend the Secretariat and the Parties for continuing to work at implementing the TRAC Report recommendations and the three pillars developed in the Puebla Council Session in 2004. We acknowledge that 2004 and 2005 have been transition years as it relates to the development of the CEC’s Operational Program Plan and Budget. However, we believe that in order to keep CEC programs running efficiently and effectively, future program plans should not take a year to be negotiated and approved by the Parties. We recommend that during the Council Session in Quebec City, the U.S. propose a process to ensure the approval of the 2006 Program plan by December 2005. We encourage the U.S. to provide the GAC with a draft of the 2006 Program Plan and Budget prior to our meeting in October 2005.
In addition, we have challenged the U.S. to support the CEC being a “conveyor belt” for addressing important continental environmental issues. In pursuing the conveyor belt metaphor, we recommend the development of brief action reports after the Secretariat has handed-off projects to other qualified organizations. This will serve as a self-affirmation of project closures. We consider this report a key tool that will assist the U.S. in realizing the goal of maintaining a productive and focused Secretariat. Such brief action reports should be no longer than 3 to 5 pages.
Furthermore, we believe the TRAC report contains very valuable recommendations. As the U.S. takes the leadership of the CEC Council in July 2005, we encourage the U.S. to use the TRAC recommendations as a point of reference for the next year. We recommend that the U.S. encourage the CEC Council to follow the TRAC report’s fourteenth recommendation which states that “the Council, with the executive director’s assistance and JPAC’s advice, report publicly on the implementation of the these recommendations, including those which have been fully or partially implemented and those which have not, with the reasons, to the 2006 annual meeting of the Council. “ The GAC feels that the Council’s response should also include how they will incorporate appropriate TRAC recommendations into the CEC’s Operational Plan and Budget.
Governmental Advisory Committee
to the U.S. Representative to the
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Advice 2005-3: Article 10(6) Working Group
The GAC was pleased to hear that the Article 10(6) Environment and Trade Officials Working Group are meeting regularly and making progress on the Trade and Environment pillar set forth in the Puebla Declaration. We commend the group for coming to the near completion of their “project assessment criteria.” Furthermore, per our advice 2004-1, we want to reemphasize that the “CEC should not be too heavily involved in project implementation activities; instead it should always be looking for outside implementation opportunities i.e., handing off projects to other qualified organizations.” We recommend that the final project assessment criteria in the Trade and Environment pillar incorporate the element of “handing off” successful projects as a component of their project timeline.
Governmental Advisory Committee
to the U.S. Representative to the
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Advice 2005-4: Information Sharing and Use of GAC Expertise
The GAC is always appreciative of the opportunity to provide advice to the U.S. government on issues related to the implementation on the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation. The GAC represents the views of State, local, and tribal governments. In this section, we would like to address a few recommendations that will make our consultative efforts more effective. In past meetings we have been charged with answering questions from EPA prior to our meetings. These questions are very important to the GAC and help us to focus our discussions. During our April meeting we did not receive any specific charges and this made our advisory role more difficult to grasp. We understand there are staff shortages in the Office of International Affairs, but we want to reiterate the importance of receiving specific requests for advice so as to focus our attention appropriately.
Furthermore, we think EPA’s Office of International Affairs missed an opportunity to hear first-hand of the good work being done by numerous organizations on environmental capacity building in Mexico that was reported at the Business Roundtable on April 27th. Please see attachment A for a copy of the Business Roundtable agenda.