Across the country, fair trade activists like the Sierra Club are raising our voices against putting harmful trade deals on the fast track to completion. At the same time, negotiators and corporate executives are meeting behind closed doors to write the rules of a massive new trade deal, the TransPacific Partnership or TPP, that would affect nearly every aspect of our lives: our jobs, the food on our tables, the quality of our air and water, and so much more. We’ve already seen how free trade agreements hurt our jobs and our wages. The U.S. was promised economic prosperity from opening up trade with Canada and Mexico 20 years ago with the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Instead, the deal has led to job displacement in all 50 states, including a net loss of 100,000 jobs in California. A net loss that has hurt California’s economy and wages.
The TPP only stands to exacerbate the problem. We’ll be competing with corporations relocating to countries like Vietnam, where the average minimum wage is a meager 56 cents per hour. It’s not just jobs that are at stake the health of our environment hangs in the balance too.
The TPP will allow foreign corporations to sue the U.S. over laws that they allege could cut into their profits. That includes laws designed to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food on our dinner tables. California’s taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay the tab to defend the American laws that keep us safe. But, even given the high stakes of the TPP, Congress may give up its opportunity to fully debate and, if necessary, amend the trade pact. FastTrack legislation, if passed, would mean that the President would be able to sign the TPP and send it to Congress for limited debate, no amendments, and a straight up or down vote. And together, we’re concerned. Fast tracking the TPP threatens our families, our jobs, and our access to clean water and clean air.
We need our representatives in D.C., like Representative Lofgren, to put Californians first, not corporations and big polluters. We need them to oppose fast track. Because if fast track were to pass, our representatives in Congress would barely be able to make a peep in objection and wouldn’t be able to raise a pen to change the deal. Fast track means Congress’ Constitutional right to shape these massive and far reaching trade agreements would disappear. Their ability to stand up for us would all but vanish. Big corporations and big polluters, naturally, are trying to take away our voice pushing to pass fast track and gain new powers to attack safeguards that clean up our environment, advance clean energy, and protect our health.
The leaked texts of the TPP so far contain very weak language on protecting harvested forests for timber or endangered species and wildlife affected by trade. We have seen a natural gas exports provision that would increase fracking all over the U.S., and especially here in California; an ISDS provision that would allow a foreign corporation to sue the U.S. government, whether on a local, state, or national level, based on a loss of, or projected loss of profits based on our environmental or labor laws, including a ban on fracking, or a rise in the minimum wage. THAT’S RIGHT, A FOREIGN CORPORATION COULD SUE YOUR COUNTY, OR CITY IF YOU WANT TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT AND WORKING FAMILIES!
Congress needs to put people before profits, and workers’ rights and the health of our environment before corporate greed. Congress needs to strike down fast track.
The time to sound the alarm to our representatives is now. Congresswoman Lofgren must stand up for the jobs and well-being of all Californians and oppose fast tracking the Transpacific Partnership. California needs fair and responsible international trade deals, not more of the same modeled after the failed NAFTA that cost us jobs and still undermines critical environmental protections.
Rep. Lofgren has a strong record of protecting the environment and working families in her tenure in Congress, and we look forward to her “NO” vote on Fast Track.
Junior Romero is Associate Representative of the Sierra Club of Northern California
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