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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat’s Wrong with Wyden-Hatch-Ryan’s Fast Track Bill – The Specifics
By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, Americablog, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. This piece first appeared at Down With Tyranny.
When we first reported on the introduction of Fast Track legislation the bill that makes it possible for Obama and corporate Congress men and women to pass TPP, the next NAFTA-style trade agreement, by neutering Congress role in the process we said that the new bill was being analyzed.
That analysis is done, and the results are in. This version of Fast Track is worse than the last version, a bill which failed to pass Congress in 2014. Here are the specifics (pdf) via Lori Wallach at Public Citizen, the go-to person for trade analysis. Im going to focus on the main problems so youre not overwhelmed with detail. Your take-aways:
* What was bad in the prior agreement is worse, despite Wydens intervention.
* Every attempt in the bill to make TPP conform to mandated worker, environmental and currency protections is unenforceable.
Note that the bill failed to attract a single Democratic co-sponsor in the House. This is not a bipartisan bill; its a Wyden-plus-Republicans bill, at least so far. Wallach starts (my emphasis everywhere):
The trade authority bill introduced today would revive the controversial Fast Track procedures to which which nearly all U.S. House of Representatives Democrats and a sizable bloc of House Republicans already have announced opposition. Most of the text of this bill replicates word-for-word the text of the 2014 Fast Track bill, which itself replicated much of the 2002 Fast Track bill. Public Citizen calls on Congress to again oppose the outdated, anti-democratic Fast Track authority as a first step to replacing decades of trade policy that has led to the loss of millions of middle-class jobs and the rollback of critical public interest safeguards.
In the past 21 years, Fast Track authority has been authorized only once by Congress from 2002 to 2007. In 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down Fast Track for President Bill Clinton, with 71 GOP members joining 171 House Democrats.
Click through in the first paragraph to see the extent of the declared opposition in Congress. There is considerable undeclared opposition as well, hidden in the not sure statements of members, especially Republicans.
.....(snip).....
Fast Track Grants Trade Authority to the Next President As Well
Wallach, from the Public Citizen press release:
Todays bill explicitly grandfathers in Fast Track coverage for the almost-completed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and would extend Fast Track procedures for three to six years.
Congress is being asked to delegate away its constitutional trade authority over the TPP, even after the administration ignored bicameral, bipartisan demands about the agreements terms, and then also grant blank-check authority to whomever may be the next president for any agreements he or she may pursue, said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch.
.....(snip).....
The Bill Makes Congress Declared Negotiating Objectives Unenforceable
Wallach:
The trade authority proposal does not require negotiators to actually meet Congress negotiating objectives in order to obtain the Fast Track privileges, making the bills negotiating objectives entirely unenforceable....................(more)
Todays bill would empower the executive branch to unilaterally select partner countries for a trade pact, determine an agreements contents through the negotiating process, and then sign and enter into an agreement all before Congress voted to approve a trade pacts contents, regardless of whether a pact met Congress negotiating objectives (as promised in the Fast Track bill.)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/gaius-publius-whats-wrong-wyden-hatch-ryans-fast-track-bill-specifics.html
marym625
(17,997 posts)The whole thing is atrocious
Bookmarked to read all links later
Autumn
(45,120 posts)rec
daleanime
(17,796 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Flynn isn't a writer, but he is a law professor and this is his area of expertise
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)& prevent a representative congress having a seat at the negotiating table on behalf of their constituents.
How could any Democrat be for this?
pampango
(24,692 posts)Before the RTAA, if Congress wanted to establish a lower tariff for particular imports, it would act unilaterally, taking the foreign countrys tariff rate as fixed. Congress would choose a tariff rate that was either a little higher or lower than the median preferred tariff, depending upon the composition of the Congress. Generally, a Republican controlled Congress would prefer higher tariffs and a Democrat controlled Congress would prefer lower tariffs. Thus, tariffs were chosen based on the domestic politics of the United States. Individual members of Congress were under great pressure from industry lobbyists to raise tariffs to protect them from the negative effects of foreign imports.
The RTAAs novel approach freed Roosevelt and Congress to break this trend of tariff increases. First, it tied tariff reductions by the United States to reciprocal tariff reductions with international partners. It also allowed Congress to approve the tariffs without amendment and with a simple majority, as opposed to the requisite two-thirds majority necessary for other treaties. Lastly, the president had the authority to negotiate the terms. These three innovations in trade policy created the political will and feasibility to enact a more liberal American trade policy.
Reciprocity was an important tenet of the trade agreements brokered under RTAA because it gave Congress more of an incentive to lower tariffs. As more foreign countries entered into bilateral tariff reduction deals with the United States, American exporters had more incentive to lobby Congress for even lower tariffs across many industries.
By giving the President the authority to negotiate these deals, the Congress effectively ceded a part of their power (authorized under US Constitution, Article I, Section VIII) to the executive branch. The President had to consider the aggregate welfare of all Americans, his foreign policy priorities, and what was feasible with other countries in making his decisions on tariffs. These considerations generally left presidents more inclined to reduce tariffs than the Congress. Whether Roosevelt or Congress foresaw this result is a matter of historical debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_Tariff_Act
They didn't call it 'fast track' under FDR but the president picked the countries to negotiate with, did the negotiations and congress voted each agreement up or down without amendment.
stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)pa28
(6,145 posts)Republicans opposed the inclusion of Wyden's conditions in the first place and if fast track is passed they can simply choose not to enforce them.
Wyden provided no mechanism for Democrats to put the brakes on other than filing a complaint with one of the Republican led committees.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Just Google TTP (or TTIP) protest -nameofcountry (or EU)
Even Vietnam, which is supposed to be all raised up and grateful and we owe them, etc., is protesting.
Not just a little band of Obama-hating malcontents.
If rammed through, I really cannot support or vote for anyone who supported or voted for it. Back-trackers included.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)And that means anybody.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)this monstrosity.
And that means anybody.
KMOD
(7,906 posts)if anyone would care to read it for themselves.
http://www.finance.senate.gov/download/?id=FEC41212-F7AF-4A6D-BF83-978401999DAF