We must stop Fast Track to Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

January 5, 2015

Dear [[First_Name]]

In 2015, we must continue to Stop Fast Track to Stop the TPP.
There is no Fast Track and no TPP right now, because you and thousands of activists across the U.S. and the Pacific Rim and the European Union have been keeping up the pressure.  Please act NOW, even if you’ve done so in the past.

TPPThere has never been a trade deal negotiation as secret as the TPP. Even so, 600 U.S. corporate lobbyists have been at the table, but not “We, the People,” whose very health and welfare and the viability of our ecosystems on which all life depends will be drastically impacted by the TPP. From limiting access to safe chemical-free food, to cutting the availability of low-cost generic medicine, and much, much more, the corporate 1% are making sure their profits are protected.  Profits they will pour into political campaigns over the next two years. And potential candidates fear saying “No” to Fast Track and the TPP, because they fear campaign funds would go to their opponents!

Let’s be clear. The TPP is about getting special deals for the global financial, corporate and political elite that they could not get through the normal political process.

Read Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 10 Reasons why the TPP must be defeated.
The TPP is a disaster for working families.

These climate-busting trade agreements will accelerate global warming and extreme weather by increasing long-distance transport of goods by moving jobs and manufacturing overseas to countries with low labor, energy and environmental laws.

They will also accelerate further development of “dirty” energy. Foreign or foreign subsidiaries of U.S. coal, oil and natural gas companies that want to extract and drill everywhere possible can challenge laws that protect public health, prevent ecosystem destruction, and air, land and water pollution. This means, for example, that New York state could have to compensate potential frackers for the ban Gov. Cuomo enacted. 

This is why we need your help. There’s no time to lose. Start the New Year off on January 5, when the new Congress is sworn in.

First, please call Sen. Wyden’s office  (202-224-5244) and say you don’t want any Fast Track bill.

In early 2014, Sen. Wyden (D-OR) joined hundreds of other members of Congress in opposing Fast Track legislation introduced by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch. But, Sen. Wyden is still talking about how to “improve” Fast Track!  We do not need a new, improved Fast Track (aka Trade Promotion Authority) that cedes all Congressional constitutional authority to “regulate trade with foreign nations” to the President, who then hands the secret deal to Congress with no amendments allowed and only a “ yes” or “no” vote.

Under Fast Track, your Representative cannot represent your interests. This is not democracy, this is creating global corporate rule by “free” trade agreement. 

Second, please call your Representative to ask him/her to NOT support Fast Track or the TPP and to call for the full TPP text to be released.  You may find his/ her D.C. office number here.      

Remember: The TPP:

  • Includes a powerful investor-rights provision allowing foreign corporations to sue a national government in a secret international trade tribunal for compensation for a regulation claimed to harm future profits.  This would make it impossible for nations (and states and cities) to pass protective laws if they potentially reduce corporate profits.
  • Has a “Docking” provision that will multiply the impact and damage of the agreement. Any country can join later thus extending the geographic scope and number of people it impacts. Today the total population of the 12 Pacific Rim TPP countries is about 1 billion.
  • Will require each TPP country to create a new domestic bureaucratic structure to conform all their agencies’ regulations to the TPP provisions and corporate-friendly framework that supersedes national, state or local laws.
  • Will NOT deliver the promised jobs. Under the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement 70,000 were promised, but over two years, 60,000 jobs have been lost. Over 1 million jobs have been lost under NAFTA.

So start the New Year off right and please make your calls.

Thank you for taking action for the democracy and Mother Earth

Nancy Price, Earth Democracy and Marybeth Gardam, Corporations v Democracy Issue Groups