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450 Environmental Groups Call on US Congress to Scrap TPP

  • Protesters call for the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal under negotiation in Atlanta, U.S. in October.

    Protesters call for the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal under negotiation in Atlanta, U.S. in October. | Photo: Reuters

Published 7 June 2016
Opinion

More than 450 green groups urged members of Congress to reject two landmark Obama administration trade deals.

More than 450 groups on Monday called on Congress to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership if it comes up for a vote this fall, saying the trade deal would allow fossil fuel companies to contest U.S. environmental rules in extrajudicial tribunals.

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In a letter signed by The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and others, the groups warned that companies could challenge U.S. environmental standards in tribunals outside the domestic legal system under provisions of the 12-nation TPP and the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with Europe.

Congress is expected to vote on the TPP after the Nov. 8 election during a lame-duck session. President Barack Obama wants the agreement ratified before he leaves office on Jan. 20, but opposition to the deal has grown during this year's presidential campaign.

WATCH: USA: Protesters Say ‘NO’ to TPP

"We strongly urge you to eliminate this threat to U.S. climate progress by committing to vote no on the TPP and asking the U.S. Trade Representative to remove from TTIP any provision that empowers corporations to challenge government policies in extrajudicial tribunals," the groups wrote in a letter to every member of Congress.

OPINION:
The TPP: A Corporate Bill of Rights

Voter anxiety over the impact of trade deals on jobs and the environment has helped empower the campaign of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running against Clinton for the Democratic nomination, as well as Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has also criticized job-cutting trade deals.

The letter says approving the deals would enable fossil fuel companies to use "investor-state dispute settlements" to demand compensation for environmental rules through cases decided by lawyers outside of the U.S. judicial system.

The groups noted that in January, Canadian energy company TransCanada asked for a private tribunal through the North American Free Trade Agreement to seek compensation exceeding US$15 billion, after Obama last year rejected a permit for its Keystone pipeline, citing global warming concerns.

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"The TPP and TTIP would more than double the number of fossil fuel corporations that could follow TransCanada’s example and challenge U.S. policies in private tribunals," the letter said.

A spokesman for the United States Trade Representative said on Monday that the United States has never lost an ISDS case because "we have continued to raise standards through each agreement."

However, civil society organizations argue that the proposed trade deals would undermine environmental safeguards and have a devastating impact on the environment.

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