(Breitbart) – Fast-Track, or Trade Promotion Authority, will
receive a final cloture vote in the Senate on Tuesday morning. This is
the bill that passed the House. If cloture is invoked, the bill will pass the
Senate and go to the President’s desk.
More than four weeks have passed since the Senate first
voted on whether to grant the Executive six years of fast-track authority. In
that time, an enormous amount has been discovered about how the President plans
to use this authority – information that was either not known or understood
when the vote was held. This includes the Administration’s pledge to use
the agreement to impose “environmental governance.”
It has become increasingly clear that the President’s
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is far more than a trade deal. It forms an
enduring, self-governing political entity with vast regulatory power. Yet
fast-track – which has led without fail to the adoption of every covered
agreement since its inception – would rush it through with less legislative scrutiny
than a Post Office reform bill.
Second chances do not come often. We now have new
information and a new vote. Which means the Senate has a second chance to slow
down and demand answers about the President’s plans before agreeing to
fast-track their adoption.
The President has refused to answer the most simple but
crucial questions about how he plans to use fast-track powers. He will not even
answer whether he believes his plan will increase or reduce the trade deficit,
increase or reduce manufacturing jobs, or increase or reduce wages. Concerns
raised about how this new Pacific Union will impact our sovereignty have been
met with only a continued unwillingness to reply to any questions about the
limits of its reach and power.
The strategy is plain: ignore the questions and rush it
through before we know what’s in it.
And the TPP is only the first agreement that would be
fast-tracked. Not fully understood at the time of the prior Senate vote is that
there are already three international pacts that would be put on a fast-track
to adoption. In addition to the TPP are the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). Together they
encompass three-fourths of the world economy, and up to ninety percent of the
world economy when including countries whose membership is being courted. The
same individuals encouraging us to leap into these binding global commitments
could not even come close to predicting the outcome of our standalone agreement
with South Korea which, contrary to promises, nearly doubled the trading
deficit between our country and theirs.
The texts of TTIP and TiSA remain completely secret
–unreviewable by lawmakers themselves – yet fast-track would authorize the
Executive to sign them before Congress votes. Then the President would send
Congress legislation to change U.S. law to comport with these new agreements,
legislation which cannot be amended, which Senators cannot filibuster, cannot
receive a two-thirds treaty vote, and cannot be debated for more than 20 hours.
Again: no fast-tracked deal has ever been blocked.
We have recently discovered that the President’s trade
representative, Michael Froman, has pledged no agreement will proceed without
“environmental governance” provisions:
…we will insist on a robust, fully enforceable
environment chapter in the TPP or we will not come to agreement…our proposals
would enhance international cooperation and create new opportunities for public
participation in environmental governance and enforcement…the United States
reiterated our bedrock position on enforceability of the entire environment
chapter…
The Ways and Means Committee has also now conceded that, as
an unprecedented “Living Agreement,” the union could change its structure,
rules, regulations and enforcement mechanisms after final
ratification – a dangerous and unjustifiable power.
TTIP, about which very little is known, could form a new
economic council involving the United States and the European Union.
TiSA would seek foreign worker mobility among 50 nations,
including between the United States, Turkey and Pakistan.
These massive agreements, endlessly complex, with permanent
ramifications for American workers and sovereignty, should not be rushed
through under fast-track procedure. Fast-track was envisioned for addressing
matters like tariffs, not forming a political and economic union.
The more vast, the more grand, the more ambitious the design
the more important it is to slow down – not to grease the skids. Congress must
retain its powers of amendment and review, as well as its treaty powers, for
agreements that clearly extend far beyond trade. And Congress must protect the
power of the individual citizen to control those who would seek to control
them.
The transnational entities stitching these compacts together
have always desired a governance structure outside the reach of the ordinary
voter; as conservatives we should never rush into the unknown on the promise
that utopia lies across the abyss.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/21/sen-sessions-slow-fast-track-now-before-its-too-late/
Comments
Email your Senators to vote NO on Cloture to
take TPA to a vote.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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