March 9, 2006

The Honorable John W. Snow
Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220

Dear Secretary Snow:

We are writing you to express our concerns over reports regarding the Administration’s consideration of withdrawing from the North American Development Bank (NADBank). NADBank is an important component of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is critical to development along the U.S. – Mexico border region. NADBank provides financing and technical expertise for environmental management projects along the border. Any decision to close NADBank could have far reaching impacts on current and future priorities.

In 2004, Congress recognized the need for reforms at NADBank. In that year, reform legislation was passed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of NADBank and the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC). Despite this effort by Congress, it is our understanding that the joint Board of NADBank and BECC has never met nor have the Congressional reforms been implemented.

Given the importance of the bank’s functions along the Texas and New Mexico borders, we ask that you implement these overdue reforms to ensure that we improve the bank’s functionality. We appreciate your attention to this matter. Please let us know if we can be of any assistance on this matter.

Sincerely,

Kay Bailey Hutchison
Jeff Bingaman
Pete V. Domenici
John Cornyn