From Progressive Democrats of America:
Vote against trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation to grant “fast track” for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Speak out and vote against the TPP whenever it comes up for debate or a vote to protect consumer safety, labor rights, and the environment against the TPP that would:
- Send millions of American jobs overseas,
- Remove accountability from corporate abusers,
- Ban efforts to save jobs such as the “Buy America” campaign,
- Block green job creation and other needed economic development,
- Overrule local, state and federal laws and regulations, and
- Strip away consumer, labor, and environmental protections.
Background information on “Fast Track”:
Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) released the following statement today after Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Paul Ryan introduced a “fast track” Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill that would expedite approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by revoking Congress’ authority to amend the deal.
“The Trade Promotion Authority introduced today circumvents Congressional authority and prevents oversight that is vital to protecting working families from bad trade deals. Both Republicans and Democrats know the TPP is a threat to our constituents, our economy, and the checks and balances that make our democracy work, which is why TPA faces such steep bipartisan opposition in Congress.
“Trade deals should be balanced, improve environmental protections and put workers first. The TPP will likely send more American jobs overseas, threaten our food and water safety, and increase the price of prescription medicines. Congress should not provide blanket authority to approve a deal that puts corporate profits over working families.”
Our friends at Public Citizen explain: “Some in Washington are preparing to steamroll Congress and revive an arcane procedure Richard Nixon cooked up to grab Congress’ trade authority and hand it over to unaccountable trade negotiators who want to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through.
“Fast Track trade authority is the way that the public and Congress got steamrollered by trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO. In fact, since Nixon cooked it up, this procedure has only ever been used 16 times among over 500 trade agreements. Good trade agreements don’t need to be Fast Tracked. Only the most damaging ones require this extreme procedure—the deals that left millions of families slammed by job offshoring, floods of imported tainted meat, and rising medicine prices.
“Now, as public and congressional opposition to TPP is growing daily, a pack of large corporations and TPP’s boosters in Congress want to revive this arcane procedure. They know Fast Track is the only way to force the TPP into effect. The good news is that Congress would have to agree to delegate away its authority. Fast Track cannot just pop into existence on its own. So, we need to ensure that Congress retains its control of the process to avoid further trade-agreement damage to us.”
Click on following link to send your opposing message to Congressman Kilmer and Senators Murray and Cantwell:
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=15956