Congress shouldn’t consider TPP during lame duck session

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be the largest free trade agreement in history, with 12 nations representing 40 percent of the global market. In this context, the potential impact on the economy, the environment and American jobs is huge.

We cannot afford to get this wrong.

{mosads}Unfortunately, TPP as written will have devastating consequences for American workers, environmental safeguards, and human rights across the globe.

International trade can be a useful tool for economic expansion and job creation. However, this version of the TPP sets dangerous precedents that will be all but impossible to undo.

One of the most alarming aspects of TPP is the expansion of the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process, giving corporations a legal weapon to enforce their agendas on sovereign nations.

This allows private businesses to sue nations over laws that hurt their corporate bottom line. That’s any laws – for anything – even legislation designed to improve social health, protect the environment or enhance worker rights.

Corporations have already used ISDS to bring over 700 lawsuits against more than 100 governments around the world. For example, when Australia attempted to reduce smoking by mandating graphic packaging, companies like tobacco giant Philip Morris filed suit. And when California banned the use of MTBE as an additive in gasoline because it was polluting groundwater, a Canadian company sued, costing the state and federal government millions of dollars to defend the case.

Profits will trump public health in a post-TPP world. They will also trump the environment.

The ISDS process, integral to TPP, will allow companies to steamroll national sovereignty on critical areas like environmental protection. Costa Rica was sued under these provisions in CAFTA by real estate developers for having environmental regulations that prevented future profits. 

Yes, future, unrealized profits.

Companies have used these suits to try to avoid paying for oil pollution in Ecuador and remove regulations on coal-fired power plants in Germany, and just this year, TransCanada announced a $15 billion lawsuit against the United States for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline.

Under TPP, over 9,000 additional companies would be allowed to bring similar lawsuits.

We cannot cede such great power to those who will aggressively undermine public prosperity and security in their narrow-minded pursuit of maximizing profits.

We also must be thoughtful about how much authority we cede in our efforts to combat human rights abuses. TPP fails to safeguard against human rights abuses and, on the contrary, will reward some state abusers by inviting them into this agreement.

TPP lacks strong provisions to deal with countries with repulsive human rights abuses including human trafficking and intolerance of the LGBT population, among others. For example, Singapore, Malaysia, and Brunei fail to meet a basic standard of protection for their LGBT populations. Consensual same-sex sexual relations are still criminalized. Yet TPP welcomes these nations with open arms.

TPP similarly lacks clear and enforceable labor protections to stop labor abuses. Nations with a poor track record of labor rights will have no incentive to stop exploitive practices.

Despite the ostensible – and laudable goal – of economic expansion, I am concerned that too many workers will actually get left behind. While this agreement requires nations to implement minimum wage laws, nothing in TPP prevents them from setting the wage as low as 5 cents an hour.

Not only does this threaten the well-being of working people around the world, it threatens jobs right here in the United States, as American businesses would be even further incentivized to move work overseas.

That, in turn, threatens the wages, benefits, and collective bargaining rights of American employees. I am concerned the rules – written by corporate executives behind closed doors – have been skewed to increase profits at the expense of the working class.

Wealthy shareholders and CEOs would profit while Americans lose their jobs and foreign workers suffer in substandard working conditions.

Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have evaluated each free trade agreement based on whether it ensures strong, clear, and enforceable labor, environmental, and human rights standards.

Building closer economic ties with our partners in the Pacific Rim is an important goal. However, it cannot come at the cost of atrocious human rights violations, destroying the livelihoods of American workers, and destructive environmental practices.

I do not believe that the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that was sent to Congress meets my standards. It does not deserve to be considered during a lame-duck session. 

As it is currently written, TPP should not be brought up, period. 

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.