[CTC] Sierra Club Statement on Misleading U.S. Trade Representative Environmental Report

[Arthur Stamoulis]

http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2015/05/sierra-club-statement-misleading-us-trade-representative-environmental-report

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
 
Sierra Club Statement on Misleading U.S. Trade Representative Environmental Report
New report ignores climate change impacts from trade
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- This morning, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a misleading report on the office’s environmental trade record. BuzzFeed News reported <http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/obama-administration-begins-aggressive-trade-campaign-deals#.sbVlmmKaok> this is part of a “high-pressure lobbying campaign by the Obama administration” to gain support for trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) <http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership>.
 
In response, Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program released the following statement:
 
“The office of the United States Trade Representative is grasping at straws with this misleading report. Given the history of U.S. trade deals and leaked draft chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s clear the TPP would harm our air, water, and climate. Let’s be clear -- the environmental chapter of the TPP is still secret. Yet every indication is that it will fall short of actually prohibiting dangerous practices like illegal timber trade and shark finning.
 
“It’s hard to take a report on the environment seriously when it ignores the most critical environmental issue of our time: the climate crisis.   The omissions don’t stop there -- this report ignores how the corporate-friendly investment chapter could wash away any potential benefits of the environment chapter. And to make the ridiculous absurd, this report praises the U.S.-Peru trade pact as a success story even as the U.S. Trade Representative has yet to hold Peru accountable for its blatant violations of the deal’s environment chapter. 
 
“Environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, representing millions of Americans, can give a real report: the TPP is far from a progressive trade deal. It’s time to see the text so we can have a real conversation about the implications of this pact on our environment.”
 
###
 
For more information on the TPP and the environment, see this blog post <http://www.sierraclub.org/compass/2015/05/far-progressive-trade-deal-trans-pacific-partnership-would-harm-our-environment>.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20150520/9643fed6/attachment.htm>