[CTC] Sierra Club, NRDC Charge TPP Environment Rules Fall Short Of Fast Track Objective

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Sierra Club, NRDC Charge TPP Environment Rules Fall Short Of TPA Objective
Posted: November 12, 2015, Inside US Trade

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) international affairs director Jake Schmidt this week said Congress should reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because of weak environmental disciplines, and pointed to the deal's provisions on multilateral environmental agreement (MEAs) as an example of how it fails to meet objectives outlined in the fast-track law passed this summer.

"The provisions on multilateral environmental agreements even fail to meet the minimum standards for environmental protection established in the fast-track law and included in past trade deals negotiated under George W. Bush," Brune said in a Nov. 10 teleconference hosted by the BlueGreen Alliance, a Minneapolis-based coalition of labor unions and environmental groups.

This refers to the so-called May 10 agreement negotiated between the Bush administration and the Democrats in the House, which held the majority at that time. May 10 required FTA partners to "adopt, maintain, and implement" laws, regulations and other measures to fulfill their obligations under any of seven specific MEAs to which they and the U.S. are both parties, as well under as any future amendments to those deals, and subjected this commitment to the normal dispute settlement procedures of the FTA.

The TPA negotiating objective on labor and environment specifically calls for U.S. trade deals to include obligations for FTA partners to adopt and maintain measures implementing their obligations under the seven MEAs that were part of the May 10 agreement.

By contrast, the TPP explicitly requires countries to adopt, maintain and implement laws and regulations to fulfill their obligations under just one of those MEAs, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Also included the TPP text are the core obligations of two of the other May 10 MEAs -- the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances and the Convention on Marine Pollution -- although the agreements themselves are mentioned only in footnotes rather than the core text (see related story).

Brune signaled environmental groups will invoke TPA in their campaigns against TPP, though he stopped short of saying they would target House Democrats. Both the Sierra Club and NRDC have opposed the TPP because of its failure to meet their demands on multilateral environmental agreements, climate change, and conservation.

"We have concluded that many provisions are toothless," Brune said.

Some environmental advocates have indicated they will specifically focus their efforts on 19 pro-TPA Democrats who signed July 29 letter laying their demands for the TPP environmental provisions and calling for it to meet the standards set out in the May 10 agreement. The lawmakers emphasized that their votes for TPA did not necessarily indicate support for TPP.

The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and also signed by Reps. Scott Peters (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Ami Bera (D-CA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Sam Farr (D-CA), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX), Jim Himes (D-CT), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Derek Kilmer (D-WA), Rick Larsen (D-WA), Ron Kind (D-WI), Beto O'Rourke (D-TX), Jared Polis (D-CO), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Kathleen Rice (D-NY).

In a Nov. 5 statement on the release of the TPP text, Blumenauer did not take an explicit position of the deal's environment disciplines. Instead, he said he would be "carefully reviewing" the deal in order to "conclude whether Oregon and the world are better with or without it.”

The TPP's failure to include all seven MEAs is just one reason why environmental groups have blasted the TPP environment chapter. In addition, they have criticized the lack of language dealing with climate change, failure to include binding provisions to prevent the killing of sharks for their fins, and the lack of enforceability of some conservation provisions.

Beyond the environment chapter, both NRDC and the Sierra Club oppose the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism included in TPP. However, Schmidt said on the call that the NRDC is pleased to see the inclusion of binding disciplines that ban subsidies to fisheries stocks that contribute to overfishing.
 
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