{"id":4978,"date":"2013-06-11T11:45:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T15:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/?p=4978"},"modified":"2013-07-09T21:11:49","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T01:11:49","slug":"democratic-revolt-against-tpp-and-fast-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/blog\/2013\/06\/11\/democratic-revolt-against-tpp-and-fast-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Revolt Against TPP and Fast Track"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Picket_HiltonNoNewNAFTA\"<\/a>Over two-thirds of Democratic freshmen in the U.S. House of Representatives have expressed serious reservations about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA)<\/a> negotiations and\u00a0the prospect of delegating Fast Track “trade promotion authority”<\/a> to the President. \u00a0They voiced their concerns in a letter sent to\u00a0House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Ranking Ways and Means Member Sander Levin on June 11, 2013, that was spearheaded by Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan and signed by 35 other House freshmen.<\/p>\n

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“The administration has yet to release draft texts after more than three years of negotiations, and the few TPP FTA texts that have leaked reveal serious problems,” the letter reads. \u00a0“Thus, we are especially concerned about any action that would transfer Congress’s exclusive Constitutional trade authority to the president.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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The TPP is poised to become the largest Free Trade Agreement in U.S. history. \u00a0The twelve countries currently involved \u2014 the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam \u2014 already cover approximately 40% of the global economy, and the TPP also includes a “docking mechanism” that could enable other countries to join over time. \u00a0The TPP’s seventeenth major round of negotiations concluded in Lima, Peru last month, and negotiators are racing to complete their work by an October deadline set by President Barack Obama and others.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Under Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress possesses exclusive authority to determine the terms of international trade agreements, but the Obama administration wants Congress to transfer that authority to the executive through a new delegation of Fast Track “trade promotion authority.” \u00a0The President’s nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, reiterated that request during his Senate confirmation hearing last Thursday.<\/div>\n
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Fast Track delegates Congress’ constitutional trade authority to the executive branch, allowing negotiators to determine the contents of trade agreement and to sign them before Congress has a vote on the matter. \u00a0The rarely-used procedure also allows trade agreements to circumvent ordinary Congressional review, with the White House writing lengthy implementing legislation that is not amendable in committee or on the floor and must be voted on within 90 days of submission, leaving Congress with only take-it-or-leave-it approval of a completed package that, in the case of the TPP, is expected\u00a0to be at least hundreds of pages long and cover some 29 separate chapters, affecting everything from food safety standards and medicine patents to energy regulations and public procurement decisions.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“It’s encouraging that so many new Members of Congress recognize the problems inherent with Fast Track, and are demanding a more meaningful role in trade policymaking for themselves and their constituents,” said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign. \u00a0“Congressman Pocan and these other freshmen have demonstrated a real commitment to creating fair trade agreements that promote job creation and economic prosperity. \u00a0That type of leadership is desperately needed if we’re going to stop letting big corporations ship our jobs overseas and dump our wages and benefits overboard along the way.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A copy of the letter and its signatories follows:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Honorable Sander M. Levin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ranking Member<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ways and Means Committee<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1106 Longworth House Office Building<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Washington, D.C. 20515<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Cc: The Honorable Nancy Pelosi<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Dear Ranking Member Levin:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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We look forward to working with you to establish United States trade policies that promote the creation of American jobs and support our national economic interests while safeguarding Congress\u2019s prerogatives to determine what domestic policies best promote the public interest.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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As the economy continues to recover from the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, we can all agree that we cannot afford to have American production and American jobs sent offshore because of unfair trade agreements that undermine our economic growth. When jobs and production factories are offshored, American wages are lost, American-made products decline, and our international interests are compromised.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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Job offshoring was a major issue in the previous election that unites our constituents – Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike. Polling consistently shows that Americans oppose our past model of \u201ctrade\u201d agreements that facilitate offshoring, undermine Buy American policies, and subject American laws to review by foreign tribunals empowered to order payment of unlimited U.S. tax dollars to foreign firms that seek to avoid playing by the same rules as U.S. firms.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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Thus, we write with serious concerns about both the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA) now being negotiated by the Obama administration and the prospect of Congress delegating wide swaths of its Constitutional authority to regulate trade (Article 1, Section 8) to the president through \u201cFast Track\u201d\u00a0 or any other open-ended delegation of \u201ctrade promotion\u201d authority.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the last Congress, two-thirds of House Democrats joined together on a letter to President Obama demanding access to the draft TPP FTA texts and raising concerns about how the pact could internationally preempt Congress\u2019s domestic policymaking prerogatives. They wrote:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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\u201cSince the United States will be obliged to bring existing and future U.S. policies into compliance with the norms established in the TPP FTA, the negotiations USTR is pursuing will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas. These could include those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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Unfortunately, today TPP FTA talks continue in extreme secrecy. The administration has yet to release draft texts after more than three years of negotiations, and the few TPP FTA texts that have leaked reveal serious problems. Thus, we are especially concerned about any action that would transfer Congress\u2019s exclusive constitutional trade authority to the president.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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Congress needs to work together to get American trade policy back on track – not give away its authority to do so.\u00a0 Reducing our authority to ensure our trade agreements serve the public interest will undermine our efforts to create American jobs and to reform a misguided trade policy that has devastated our manufacturing base through the offshoring of American production and American jobs.<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Indeed, given the vast scope of today\u2019s \u201ctrade\u201d agreements, we do not believe that a broad delegation of Congress\u2019s constitutional trade authority is generally appropriate. Negotiations on the TPP FTA delve deeply into many non-trade matters under the authority of Congress and state legislatures. If completed, the TPP FTA would lock in policies on these non-trade matters that could not be altered without consent of all other signatory countries. Thus, ensuring Congress has a robust role in the formative aspects of trade agreements is vital.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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We are all deeply committed to creating jobs in our communities and across the country. To do so effectively, we believe it is critical that Congress maintains its authority to ensure American trade agreements are a good deal for the American people.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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Sincerely,<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0.<\/div>\n
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U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan (WI-02), Ron Barber (AZ-02), Joyce Beatty (OH-03), Ami Bera (CA-07), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Tony Cardenas (CA-29), Matthew A. Cartwright (PA-17), William L. Enyart (IL-12), Bill Foster (IL-11), Lois Frankel (FL-22), Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02), Pete P. Gallego (TX-23), Joe Garcia (FL-26), Alan Grayson (FL-09), Steven A. Horsford (NV-04), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Hakeem S. Jeffries (NY-08), Joseph Kennedy, III (MA-04), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01), Annie McLane Kuster (NH-02), Alan S. Lowenthal (CA-47), Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM-01), Daniel B. Maffei (NY-24), Patrick Murphy (FL-18), Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA-35) , Richard M. Nolan (MN-08), Beto O\u2019Rourke (TX-16), Donald M. Payne Jr. (NJ-10), Raul Ruiz (CA-36), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09), Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Mark Takano (CA-41), Dina Titus (NV-01), Juan Vargas (CA-51), and Marc A. Veasey (TX-33)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over two-thirds of Democratic freshmen in the U.S. House of Representatives have expressed serious reservations about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA) negotiations and\u00a0the prospect of delegating Fast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nDemocratic Revolt Against TPP and Fast Track - Citizens Trade Campaign<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over two-thirds of Democratic House freshmen tell party leadership they oppose delegating Fast Track authority to the President for the TPP\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.citizenstrade.org\/ctc\/blog\/2013\/06\/11\/democratic-revolt-against-tpp-and-fast-track\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Democratic Revolt Against TPP and Fast Track - 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