22 U.S.C. § 262l–1 — Sustainable economic growth and management of natural resources; environmental impact of loans; pest management; addition of trained professionals; “early warning system”

(a) Implementation of programs to promote sustainable economic growth and management of natural resources; instructions to Executive Directors of Multilateral Development Banks It is U.S. policy that taking part in international financial institutions depends on those institutions running programs for environmentally sustainable growth and sustainable natural-resource management. The Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Directors of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to keep pushing the banks to: (1) Add trained professional staff and strengthen existing staff training in ecology and related fields. (2) Develop and carry out plans for systematic environmental review of all projects. (3) Fully inform and involve host-country environmental and health officials, and non-governmental environmental and indigenous-peoples groups, at every stage of environmentally sensitive projects and policy-based lending, so local communities and non-governmental organizations can take part in planning projects that might hurt them. (4) Substantially increase lending for environmentally beneficial projects — such as technical assistance to environment ministries, resource rehabilitation, protecting indigenous peoples, and small-scale, low-tech projects like mixed farming, agroforestry, kitchen gardens, watershed management, high-yield wood lots, integrated pest management, dune stabilization, energy efficiency, small hydro, solar, wind and biomass energy, rural telecommunications, and better irrigation management. (5) Compare the cost of new power plants against the cost of improving energy efficiency in the project area. (b) Environmental impact of loans; instructions to Executive Directors The Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Directors of the MDBs, and, where appropriate, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to: (1) Push for all country lending strategies, policy-based loans, and adjustment programs to analyze their impact on natural resources, sustainable development, and legal protections for indigenous peoples' land rights. (2) Push for policy-based lending programs that improve natural-resource management, environmental quality, and protection of biological diversity. (3) Push the banks to commit to conserving wetlands, tropical forests, and other unique, highly productive ecosystems. (c) Repealed. This subsection was repealed by Public Law 101–240, title V, section 541(d)(8), on December 19, 1989. (d) Pest management To promote farming that doesn't depend heavily on chemicals, the Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Directors of the MDBs to propose to other bank directors that integrated pest management and biological pest control become the preferred, priority approach on all bank-funded agricultural projects. (e) Instructions to Executive Director to IMF The Secretary of the Treasury must instruct the U.S. Executive Director at the IMF to push the IMF to deeply analyze how its adjustment policies and lending conditions affect the environment, public health, natural resources, and indigenous people. (f) Support of donor nations for additional trained professionals By March 30, 1988, the Secretary of State and the Administrator of the Agency for International Development must start talks with other donor nations about helping add environmental and socio-cultural impact staff to the Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and African Development Bank. Based on those talks, they must provide resources — including loaned staff and financial support — to help add enough trained staff to each of those regional banks. (g) Bilateral and multilateral discussions to strengthen environmental performance of Multilateral Development Banks The Secretaries of the Treasury and State, working with the Administrator of the Agency for International Development, must hold bilateral and multilateral talks with other MDB members to further improve each bank's environmental performance. These talks must cover organizational, administrative, and procedural changes needed to manage assistance programs that protect and sustainably use natural resources, done in consultation with affected local communities. (h) Operation of "early warning system" The Administrator of the Agency for International Development, working with the Secretaries of the Treasury and State, must keep running and improve the "early warning system" by: (1) Instructing overseas AID missions and U.S. embassies to study the impacts of Multilateral Development Bank loans well before approval — covering economic viability, harm to the environment, natural resources, public health, and indigenous peoples, and ways to fix that harm — and making it public unless classified for national security. (2) Compiling a list of proposed Multilateral Development Bank loans likely to cause such harm, updated with public input, and given to the Appropriations Committees by April 1, 1988, and every six months after. (3) Creating a way to share the early-warning information with interested donor and borrowing nations, and encouraging the banks to build a similar system themselves. (i) Adverse impacts to environment, natural resources, or indigenous peoples; instructions to Executive Director of appropriate Multilateral Development Bank If a review under subsection (h) finds harm to 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 that eliminate or reduce the harm. (j) Report by February 1, 1988 The Committee on Health and Environment of the Agency for International Development, created under section 262l(i) of this title, must report its findings to the Appropriations Committees by February 1, 1988. (k) Report by August 1, 1988 The Secretary of State, working with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Administrator of the Agency for International Development, other federal agencies, and the public, must prepare and give the Appropriations Committees and relevant authorizing committees a report by August 1, 1988. It must lay out a comprehensive strategy for using U.S. foreign assistance — through both multilateral and bilateral agencies — to address problems like desertification, tropical deforestation, wetland loss, soil erosion, wildlife and biodiversity loss, and harm to estuaries, fisheries, croplands, and grasslands. The report must include: (1) A list of the multilateral and bilateral agencies the U.S. funds, in part or in full, whose work significantly affects sustainable natural-resource use and the rights and welfare of indigenous people in developing countries. (2) A description of each agency's internal policies, procedures, and organizational structure for handling these issues. (3) An assessment of how the U.S. money given to these agencies can best be used in the future to address these problems.