The proposal a decade ago to advance regional integration of the United States, Canada and Mexico by negotiating a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) provoked a sharp reaction from the environmental community. US environmental groups argued, among other things, that increased competition would weaken environmental standards in all three countries and that increased industrial growth in Mexico would further damage its environmental infrastructure. Their demands for safeguards against real or potential abuses posed a serious obstacle to the launch of NAFTA negotiations. A side accord - the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) - helped alleviate some but not all of their concerns, and they have since opposed new trade initiatives. Does the NAFTA record on the environment since 1994 justify their criticism? Six years is too short a time period to redress decades of environmental abuse, but it is not too soon to assess NAFTA's achievements and shortcomings in meeting its environmental objectives and its impact on environmental conditions in these three countries. In this analysis, the authors review (1) the environmental provisions of the NAFTA; (2) the NAAEC; (3) the situation at the US-Mexican border; and (4) the trends in North American environmental policy. They emphasize thatthe environmental problems of North America were not the result of NAFTA nor was the NAAEC devised to address all of them. It makes more sense to tackle the shortcomings than lament the existence of a free trade agreement (as many environmentalists do), or overlook the problems (as diehard free-trade advocates might).