[CTC] Congress Can — and Should — Declassify the TPP

[Manuel Perez Rocha]

fpif.orghttp://fpif.org/congress-can-and-should-declassify-the-tpp/
Congress Can — and Should — Declassify the TPPBy Robert Naiman
[image: democracy-free-trade-TPP-oligarchy-neoliberalism]

(Photo: StopFastTrack / Flickr)

One of the most controversial aspects of the proposed Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) is the fact that the Obama administration has tried to
impose a public blockade on the text of the draft agreement.

When Congress votes on whether to grant the president “fast-track
authority” to negotiate the TPP — which would bar Congress from making any
changes to the secret pact after it’s negotiated — it will effectively be a
vote to pre-approve the TPP itself.

Although the other negotiating countries and “cleared” corporate advisers
to the U.S. Trade Representative have access to the draft TPP agreement,
the American people haven’t been allowed to see it before Congress votes on
fast track. Members of Congress can read the draft agreement under heavy
restrictions, but they can’t publicly discuss or consult on what they have
read.

*Arguments against Secrecy*

Alan Beatie, who is sort of the economic globalization bureau chief at
the *Financial
Times*, recently challenged
<http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2015/05/five-arguments-against-the-self-defeating-secrecy-of-the-trans-pacific-partnership/>
what
he saw as the main establishment arguments in favor of this secrecy.

Beatie noted that:

   1. Keeping the negotiating texts secret isn’t keeping other countries
   from getting secret knowledge about the U.S. position in negotiations. They
   already have this information. “It’s the public that are being kept in the
   dark,” Beatie wrote. Who or what was harmed when WikiLeaks published the TPP
   chapter on intellectual property claims
   <https://wikileaks.org/tpp/static/pdf/Wikileaks-secret-TPP-treaty-IP-chapter.pdf>
   ?
   2. Interim texts are published for other important international
   negotiations — like on climate change. Indeed, interim texts were published
   on international trade agreements in the past.
   3. Seeing the text at the end of the process isn’t good enough, because
   then it will be too late to change it. Saying that the public doesn’t get
   to see the text until the end is tantamount to keeping the public out of
   the process.
   4. Unlike the Iran nuclear negotiations, the TPP is about commerce, not
   “national security.”

In fact, the Iran nuclear negotiations have arguably been more transparent
to Congress and the American people so far than the TPP negotiations. After
all, there’s been a sustained public argument over the likely provisions of
the Iran deal. It’s very clear now to anyone who cares that the current
P5+1 negotiations with Iran, if they succeed, will result in an agreement
that allows Iran to enrich uranium. There’s no mystery about that. For
those who oppose any agreement that allows Iran to enrich uranium, there’s
no need to wait and see what deal emerges before criticizing.

*Transparency Denied*

Similarly, it’s knowable now that the Obama administration has no intention
of trying to negotiate enforceable provisions against currency manipulation
in the TPP.

Therefore, a yes vote on fast track now would be a vote to accept that the
TPP will have no enforceable provisions on currency manipulation. But this
is the kind of transparency that the public has so far been denied by
officials shrouding the text and claiming that we shouldn’t talk about the
details until the text has been finalized.

This example shows that the question of transparency around the TPP isn’t
just a question of administration transparency. As in so many other cases,
it’s also a question of congressional transparency.

The two-step process of voting on fast track now and the TPP later — when
the fast track vote is in fact the key vote to approve the agreement, and
when key, knowable provisions of the TPP agreement are shrouded in public
fog at the time of the fast track vote — is designed to allow swing members
of Congress to vote yes on fast track while pretending that they are not
thereby voting yes on the TPP. Later, some of these members will vote no on
passage of the TPP, just as former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt
(D-MO) cast a key enabling vote for fast track in 1991 and then
subsequently voted against NAFTA.

Therefore, the transparency complaint should also be directed against
Congress.

*What Congress Can Do*

Congress could, if it wants, declassify the TPP text.

Agitation to push Congress to declassify the TPP text could have the effect
of putting members of Congress on the record on whether they think that the
TPP text should be classified or not. If a substantial group of members
supported such a move, they could pressure the administration to agree to
declassification.

According to their own rules, both the House and the Senate can act
unilaterally to declassify information in their possession.

As a *McClatchy* report noted in August 2013
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/12/199122/senate-intelligence-panel-could.html>,
the Senate version is in Section 8 of Senate Resolution 400, which
established the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The House version
is in 11(g) of the House Rule X
<http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/house-rules.pdf>. The rules authorize
the chambers’ respective intelligence committees to vote to publicly
disclose any information in the possession of the committee after
concluding that the public interest would be served by such disclosure.

Both rules envision a multi-step process. First, the committee votes on
whether to declassify. If the vote is yes, the president has an opportunity
to object in writing, stating the reasons for the objection. If the
president does not object, disclosure proceeds. If the president does
object, the committee considers whether to proceed anyway, by referring the
matter to the full chamber.

As the *McClatchy* report noted, these procedures have never been “used” in
the sense of carrying them through to completion. However, they have been
used as a threat to compel the administration to bargain in good faith with
Congress over declassification. They were used in this way in the fight
over declassification of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence
Committee’s report on the CIA’s use of torture.

And they could be so used in the present case. I called the Senate
Intelligence Committee and confirmed that they have the power to move to
declassify the TPP text if they want.

So, let’s push members of Congress who are complaining about the secrecy of
the TPP to go on the record: Do you think that the intelligence committees
should move to declassify the TPP negotiating text?

Manuel Pérez-Rocha
Associate Fellow
Institute for Policy Studies
*Celebrating 50 years of turning ideas into action! *
Cel. 240-838-6623
www.ips-dc.org
http://www.ips-dc.org/issues/trade/
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