(OTTAWA) Vancouver-based Methanex Corp.’s proposed $970-million (U.S.) lawsuit against the United States joins a growing list of NAFTA lawsuits designed to overturn health and environmental laws in favour of corporations, says The Council of Canadians and Sierra Club of Canada. Methanex Corp. is suing the U.S. government after California announced it is phasing out MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), a gasoline additive Methanex manufactures, due to fears leaking storage facilities could contaminate groundwater.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared MTBE to be a known animal carcinogen and a probable human carcinogen. Both the company and the industry generally have been plagued recently with falling sales. Methanex has followed the lead of Ethyl Corp., manufacturer of the gasoline additive MMT, which last year became the first company to successfully pressure the Canadian government to reverse an earlier ban on MMT when it launched a Chapter 11 lawsuit against Canada.

"As long as Chapter 11 of NAFTA allows companies to directly sue governments over laws they feel jeopardize their profits, the numbers of these cases and the severity of their impact will only increase," said Peter Bleyer, Executive Director of The Council of Canadians."

"NAFTA is a tool in the hands of corporations desperate to protect their bottom line, no matter what the cost to human health or the environment," added Angela Rickman of the Sierra Club of Canada.

"Chapter 11 very clearly favours trade law over every other form of domestic law," said Jo Dufay, Campaign Co-ordinator with the Council. "Under NAFTA, you simply can’t have a meaningful environmental law, or one that directly protects public health and safety, if they in any way conflict with corporate profits."

The Council called on Trade Minister Sergio Marchi to negotiate changes to NAFTA, Chapter 11, as he has hinted he wishes to do so. "Surely, even the U.S. government will now see that NAFTA gives outrageous powers to corporations, and jeopardizes human health and the environment," said Bleyer.

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