House Democrats say deal's environmental protections don't go far enough

E&E News
By Amanda Peterka
February 21, 2014

More than 120 Democratic members of the House are urging President Obama to strengthen environmental protections in a new trade deal being hashed out with Pacific Rim countries.

The members said they worried that recently leaked environmental language from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) indicated that the Obama administration was at risk of folding to pressure from other countries to weaken provisions protecting wildlife, air and water.

"TPP must include new and robust commitments for member countries to protect and conserve forests, oceans, and wildlife," the lawmakers wrote.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being negotiated among the United States, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei. It would boost trade and investment between the nations, increasing the export market for the United States.

Combined, the countries represent 40 percent of global gross domestic product and one-third of world trade.

Environmentalists have also raised concerns about both the content of the TPP and the process in which it's being negotiated. The draft released by WikiLeaks last month indicated that the pact would forgo binding agreements to address issues such as illegal logging and wildlife crime and instead rely on cooperative measures. Environmental groups have said it lacks meaningful enforcement mechanisms (Greenwire, Jan. 15).

Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Peter DeFazio of Oregon led the House members in voicing their opposition.

"If TPP is really a '21st century trade agreement' we must deal with global environmental problems such as illegal wildlife trafficking and poaching, illegal fishing, shark finning, and illegal logging," DeFazio said in a statement. "TPP should not reward trading partners that undermine our international environmental agreements and have weak environmental and labor standards."

U.S. trade officials have publicly said they support strong environmental provisions in the agreement.

The Obama administration has also pushed to fast-track both the TPP and a trade deal that is concurrently being negotiated with the European Union, through a measure known as trade promotion authority. Under TPA, Congress would be unable to make changes and could merely give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the trade deals.

Congress, though, must first pass legislation putting trade promotion authority in place. Obama pushed Congress to pass the legislation in his State of the Union speech.

"We need to work together on tools like bipartisan trade promotion authority to protect our workers, protect our environment and open new markets to new goods stamped 'Made in the USA,'" the president said.

But fast-tracking is proving to be a hard sell.

The Senate's sponsor, Max Baucus (D-Mont.), recently left Congress to take the position of U.S. ambassador to China. While GOP leaders support the legislation, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on the Senate side and sponsored by House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) on the House side, Democrats in both the House and Senate have opposed trade promotion authority.

Last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she did not necessarily reject Obama's trade agenda but that she was not in "Camp Baucus."

"Its present form is unacceptable to me," Pelosi told reporters at last week's Democratic issues retreat in Cambridge, Md.

Environmental groups have also opposed fast-tracking the trade deals.

"Recently leaked documents show us that while the U.S. government is pushing to strengthen conservation elements of the chapter, it's also pushing to weaken rules related to climate disruption and biodiversity," said Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Program.