22 U.S.C. § 262l — Environmental reform measures and remedial measures; Committee on Health and the Environment

(a) Environmental reform measures; instructions to Executive Directors of Multilateral Development Banks The Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Directors of the Multilateral Development Banks to push for the following: (1) Push the banks to hire trained ecology staff, strengthen existing environmental staff, and give staff career incentives to build environmental and natural-resource concerns into their project planning. (2) Push the banks to involve environment and health officials, non-governmental indigenous and conservation groups, and local communities early and often in planning environmentally sensitive projects, so people who might be hurt by a project can take part in planning it before it is approved. (3) Set up a regular, multi-discipline process for reviewing how land will be used before approving loans, including a review of other resource use in and near the project area. (4) Push the banks to develop and carry out plans to rehabilitate and manage borrower countries' ecological resources — especially soil, wildlife, wetlands, estuaries, croplands, grasslands, forests, and fisheries — through long-term research programs, enough field staff like park rangers and forestry experts, and better training in environmental science and land-use planning. (5) Push the banks to devote a bigger share of their programs to environmentally beneficial projects, such as technical assistance for environment ministries, resource rehabilitation, protecting indigenous peoples, and small-scale, low-tech projects like mixed farming, agroforestry, kitchen gardens, watershed management, pest management, dune stabilization, energy efficiency, small hydro and solar systems, rural telecommunications, and better irrigation management. (6) Push borrower nations to use energy and resources more efficiently, by putting more energy lending into efficiency improvements and small decentralized power sources like solar, wind, or biomass, and by comparing the cost of new power plants against the cost of efficiency improvements. (7) Push the banks to fund projects that protect crucial wetlands and avoid funding projects that would convert major wetland systems, and require detailed impact studies for projects that might harm fisheries, wildlife, or other important resources in these areas. (8) Push for a training component within the World Bank's Economic Development Institute for environmental and natural-resource planning. (9) Regularly raise the banks' environmental progress, focused on these measures, at meetings of the banks' Boards of Directors. (10) Require at least a four-week gap between when staff give the board their project recommendations and when the board votes on the project. (b) Joint evaluation of potential environmental problems and remedial measures The Secretaries of the Treasury and State, and the head of the Agency for International Development, must jointly run a thorough U.S. government evaluation of environmental problems — and whether measures to address them are adequate — for proposed loans involving: large dams on rivers in tropical countries; roads into undeveloped areas; and agricultural and rural development programs. The evaluation must cover water-quality decline, silt buildup, waterborne disease, forced resettlement, deforestation, threats to indigenous peoples' land, health, and culture, wetlands disruption, topsoil and irrigation problems like waterlogging and salt buildup, and pesticide misuse and resistance. (c) Additional initiatives The Secretaries of the Treasury and State must regularly pursue diplomatic efforts — beyond those in subsection (a)(5) — to discuss improving the banks' environmental performance with the banks' representatives and the government ministries that instruct them. They must work with both borrower and donor countries to make sure the reforms above are actually carried out together. (d) Special meetings of Boards of Governors The Secretaries of the Treasury and State must formally propose that each Multilateral Development Bank's Board of Governors hold a special meeting within the next 12 months, focused on environmental performance and protecting the environment and indigenous peoples. (e) Reporting requirements generally By January 15, 1987, and every year after, the Secretary of the Treasury must send the Appropriations Committees a report on the banks' progress in carrying out the environmental reforms listed in subsection (a)(1) through (8). (f) Reporting requirements respecting environmental staffing In that report, when discussing the staffing measures from subsection (a)(1)(A), the Secretary of the Treasury must specifically address the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development's progress in adding environmentally trained staff to each of its six regional offices, to review projects for ecological impact. (g) Duties of Administrator of Agency for International Development The Administrator of the Agency for International Development, working with the Secretaries of the Treasury and State, must: (1) Instruct overseas AID missions and U.S. embassies to study the impacts of proposed Multilateral Development Bank projects well before the bank approves them — covering the project's economic viability, harm to the environment, natural resources, and indigenous peoples, and ways to eliminate or reduce that harm — and make this information public unless it is classified for national security. (2) In preparing these reviews, compile a list of project categories likely to harm the environment, natural resources, or indigenous peoples, developed with public input, and give it to the Appropriations Committee by December 31, 1986, and every six months after that. (3) Study whether a cooperative "early warning system" for concerning projects could be created with other interested donor countries. (h) Adverse impacts to environment, natural resources, or indigenous peoples; instructions to Executive Director of Multilateral Development Bank If a review under subsection (g)(1) finds a project would harm the environment, natural resources, or indigenous peoples, the Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Director of that bank to seek changes to the project that eliminate or reduce the harm. (i) Committee on Health and the Environment The Administrator of the Agency for International Development must appoint a Committee on Health and the Environment. It will look for ways to help countries properly use farm and industrial chemicals, and consider alternatives like integrated pest management. The committee must broadly represent industry, agriculture, labor, health, and environmental interests, and report preliminary findings to Congress before hearings on the fiscal year 1988 budget.