“It would be the largest trade deal in history…” -Robert Reich
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been openly critical about the Trans Pacific Partnership.
“If you haven’t heard much about the Trans Pacific Partnership, that’s part of the problem right there, it would be the largest trade deal in history.”
In the brief video below, Reich diagrams a few of the suspected economic shortfalls within the White House’s trade plan. He blasts the proposal for making it easier for US companies to outsource thousands of jobs. Reich also adds that it gives industries the potential to receive compensation for lost profits stemming from environmental regulations.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, too, was critical of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, warning this week that provisions inside the proposal would allow multinational corporations to “tilt the playing field,” on issues like worker safety and health regulations.
Although disapproval for the partnership has been far-reaching, White House spokesman Jeff Zients addressed some concerns in a recent blog post, saying that “there are good answers,” to the questions laid out by Warren and others. He says the partnership would add safeguards, close loopholes and create transparency. He states that the
“TPP will result in higher levels of labor and environmental protections in most TPP countries than they have today.”
However, there have been significant doubts among many TPP critics as to the weight of Zients claim. The entire chapter dedicated to environmental protections appears to be full of empty promises. Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange claimed that the much sought after Environmental Chapter, which was purported to be a sweet spot of the international agreement, was little more than “media sugar water.” He charged that the environmental safeguards lacked teeth and any real enforcement mechanism.
For a better idea of just how mild the environmental protections are, let’s take a look at Article SS.5 paragraph 5:
Each Party shall provide appropriate sanctions or remedies for violations of its environmental laws for the effective enforcement of those laws. Such sanctions or remedies may include a right to bring an action against the violator directly seeking damages or injunctive relief, or a right to seek governmental action.
Essentially, what this says is that anyone in the partnership has the right to fine polluters as a way of upholding the law and dissuading violations. But as we have seen even here in the US, these fines can amount to little more than speeding tickets for companies that profit billions of dollars annually. Recently, Republican Governor Chris Christie settled an $8.9 billion dollar claim levied by the state of New Jersey against Exxon Mobil for approximately $250 million dollars. This amounts to less than .07 percent of the oil giant’s $407 billion revenues reported for 2013.
To put that into a more manageable perspective, the state of Illinois estimates the cost of a DUI conviction at about $14,000. Given that the median income of US households is just under $52,000, if one were to pay even $3500 in fines for a conviction of driving under the influence, it would amount to almost 7% of the yearly income for that household. So, for perspective’s sake, Exxon Mobil ultimately paid less than .07% of it’s yearly revenues for environmental damages that the New Jersey attorney general’s office claimed were “unprecedented in New Jersey history,” totaling more than 1,500 acres of wetlands, marshes and meadows.
To quote the great Ansel Adams:
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
The Trans Pacific Partnership is another battlefront of that ever expanding fight.
