WATER, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE US CONSTITUTION

Statement to the Joint Committee On Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture Legislative Hearing on Massachusetts House Bill No. 1333 (An Act to Preserve Public Water and Sewer Systems), Statehouse, Boston, October 24, 2005

Ward Morehouse, Co-Founder, Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD) and Western Massachusetts Committee on Corporations and Democracy (Shays 2).

This bill is not a moment too soon. I urge that it be passed into law with all deliberate speed. Had such a law been in place, the people of Holyoke would have been spared much grief. Because it was not, the current Mayor, a self-declared proponent of privatizing public functions of municipal government, was able, albeit illegally, to sign a deeply flawed 20-year contract for $176 million of city money with a subsidiary (Aquarion) of a multi-national water corporation based in the United Kingdom (Kelda).

In the face of growing public disapproval and steadfast opposition by seven members of the City Council (which meant that the Mayor was unable to get funds approved for the Aquarion contract), the Mayor proceeded to borrow money from Aquarion to pay for the corporation's first-year charges under the contract. He also committed the city in future years to pay back this loan at 6 per cent interest--a far higher rate than the 2 per cent available to the City under the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

Holyoke is one of the poorest municipalities in the Commonwealth. Its citizens and the City have far more urgent needs that paying through their noses huge sums to a private corporation when the City can deal with the environmental clean up of the Connecticut River at far less cost.

This bill has the added benefit of stopping the mischievous use of "Special Legislation" to circumvent state rules and regulations designed to protect tax payers from misuse of public funds. Thus, the Aquarion contract was submitted to the City of Holyoke on the basis of a single bid rather than multiple bids required when large-scale public works are involved.

By approving "special legislation," the legislature has relegated the municipalities in Massachusetts to a far lower standard of democracy than that on the state level.

If the standards of the Pacheco law (governing the contracting of state-run public sector services to the private sector), were upheld at the municipal level, single-bid contracts without public cost comparisons--like the Holyoke contract--would be illegal.

The valiant city councilors of Holyoke have only been asking for a Pacheco standard in the city--the right to do a cost comparison of what it would cost Holyoke to perform the same service in the most cost efficient manner, with the private bid. "Special legislation" permits private companies to ramrod contracts through the cities through cronyism without the Pacheco-standard protections.

Crucial to the functioning of government in a society that aspires to be democratic is control of various services and other actions by the people through their elected representatives. Thus the Mayor would cede to a private corporation responsibility for a function of municipal government vital to the well being of the citizens of the City.

This bill also takes a first step in addressing a fundamental flaw in the structure of government at the local, state and national levels--namely, the increasing role of large corporations now bigger than most nation states in dominating many aspects of U.S. society. The founding fathers did not intend to create such a society; the word "Corporation" does not even appear in the Constitution. While there are many imperfections in the U.S. Constitution, especially in asserting private property rights over the human rights of natural persons, the overall goal of the Constitution is well expressed in its preamble:

"We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain this Constitution for the United States of America."

By asserting that water and sewer systems are crucial to human existence and therefore cannot be privatized, HB 1333 begins to address the reality of corporate dominance and to embrace the democratic principles on which this nation--and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--were founded.

Finally, this bill will help our country begin to fulfill its human rights obligations under international law.

Thus, the United Nations Charter, which has been ratified by the U.S. Government and as a treaty is the highest law of the land, commits member states, including the U.S., to "promote social progress and better standards of life" and to "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights” That in turn leads us to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proposed in 1948 to the UN by a representative of the U.S. Government and which is considered to set forth goals applying to all countries.

Article 21 states that "the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government" and Article 25 asserts, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family". Both articles, as well as many other human rights instruments contain provisions that will be advanced by the passage of HB 1333.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to present my views on this important legislation.