<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""> </span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ReplaceNAFTA/videos/1972013562828730/" style="color: purple;" class="">***Watch Live Stream of the event***</a></span></b><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><u class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(0, 112, 192);" class=""> </span></u></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; line-height: 16.866666793823242px; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 24.533334732055664px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">At Hill Forum, Conservative and Progressive Trade and Legal Experts Support Removal of ISDS From NAFTA, Revealing Isolation of Corporate Lobby Defending NAFTA Job Outsourcing Incentives</span></b><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Small Business Groups, Leading Economics and Law Professors, State Legislatures Oppose ISDS as Corporate Lobby Incites Deadlock in NAFTA Renegotiations by Urging Canada, Mexico to Reject U.S. Proposal to Cut Investor Privileges <o:p class=""></o:p></span></i></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">WASHINGTON, D.C. – Trade experts and constitutional scholars from the left and the right who battle over most issues – including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – joined together at a Capitol Hill briefing today to support elimination of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from NAFTA. Corporate lobbying groups have shrilly</span> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">attacked an administration proposal to limit NAFTA’s investor privileges that make it less risky and costly to outsource jobs and empower corporations to attack domestic policies by going before tribunals of three corporate lawyers who can order unlimited compensation to be paid to investors by taxpayers.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The improbable transpartisan consensus reveals that the corporate lobby has become increasingly isolated in trying to save the controversial ISDS regime as countries around the world withdraw from or renegotiate ISDS-enforced pacts. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has threated to oppose a renegotiated NAFTA if it does not include ISDS. U.S. corporate interests are encouraging the Canadian and Mexican governments to refuse to engage on the U.S. ISDS rollback proposal, a strategy that increases the prospect that President Donald Trump will withdraw from the pact. Interestingly, the </span><a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/us-automakers-break-with-business-on-key-nafta-issue/article/2625858" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">American Auto Policy Council</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> has called ISDS unnecessary, noting that its inclusion could imperil NAFTA altogether. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The speakers reflected the breadth of ISDS opposition, which includes </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">the </span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/global-issues/trade/joint-comments-on-nafta-submitted-to-us-trade-representative-2017-06-12.cfm" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 8pt; text-decoration: none;" class="">, </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">the </span></span><a href="http://www.ncsl.org/ncsl-in-dc/task-forces/policies-labor-and-economic-development.aspx#Trade" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">National Conference of State Legislatures</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">, </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/national-association-of-attorneys-general-resolution-2002.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">state attorneys general</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">, </span></span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/small_business_letter.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">small business organizations</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-decoration: none;" class="">, </span></span><a href="https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2017-06/NAFTA%20Negotiating%20Recommendations%20from%20AFL-CIO%20%28Witness%3DTLee%29%20Jun2017%20%28PDF%29_0.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">unions</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and hundreds of the nation’s leading legal and economics professors, who </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/press-release-public-citizen-ccsi-isds-professor-letter-oct-2017.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">released</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> a </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/isds-law-economics-professors-letter-oct-2017_2.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">letter</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> last month calling on the</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> administration to remove ISDS from NAFTA. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Stark criticism of ISDS has come from voices as disparate as </span><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-138_97be.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and pro-free trade think tanks such as the </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2017/10/24/to-save-nafta-kill-its-controversial-dispute-settlement-provisions/#7c1933223168" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">Cato Institute</span></a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class=""> </span></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">to </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class=""> </span></span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html?utm_term=.47af96643032" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">former Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist </span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/new-rules-road-progressive-approach-globalization" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Jared Bernstein</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Multinational corporations already have pocketed $392 million from North American taxpayers under NAFTA ISDS attacks on toxic bans, environmental and public health policies, and more. Tens of billions are pending in ongoing NAFTA cases. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">At the forum, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at Columbia University, said:<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">“Provision of justice should not be privatized and ISDS does this for no good reason other than to prioritize benefits to corporations. It is a system that treats foreign firms more favorably and encourages American businesses to invest abroad. So instead of creating jobs here, we will continue to lose them. Americans should not be held up by business groups’ threat to not move forward with a renegotiated NAFTA that doesn’t include ISDS. If something is wrong with our system of adjudication, why not change it to benefit every firm and not just foreign ones?”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Dan Ikenson, director of Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies and longtime supporter of free trade agreements, outlined his arguments against ISDS in </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2017/10/24/to-save-nafta-kill-its-controversial-dispute-settlement-provisions/#7c1933223168" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">his recent </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Forbes</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> piece</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">: “ISDS is a subsidy that encourages outsourcing and should be removed from free trade agreements because it undermines how the free market is supposed to work. It is protectionism that socializes investment risk. Multinational companies that invest internationally should be savvy enough to conduct the appropriate cost benefit analysis for their investments. The U.S. government should not be subsidizing risk averse outsourcing through ISDS.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Bruce Fein, a constitutional law expert </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">and former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, raised the constitutional questions surroundin</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">g ISDS that he noted in his </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/16/trump-should-ignore-call-leave-nafta-alone/" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">recent </span><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Washington Times</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> op-ed</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> on the subject: “ISDS is completely wrongheaded and unconstitutional. According to the appointments clause of our Constitution, private individuals who are not accountable to our legislative or executive branch are alien to our constitutional universe and have no authority to interpret and render final judgment over U.S. laws. Rule of law is not honored under ISDS.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and </span><a href="http://prospect.org/article/new-rules-road-progressive-approach-globalization" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">longtime progressive critic</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> of the corporate protectionism at the center of U.S. trade policy, noted: “T</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">he corporate lobby’s panic about losing the expansive protections they slipped into NAFTA is unsurprising, but the more they scream about the proposals to limit their use of NAFTA ISDS tribunals to grab millions in taxpayer funds and grease the skids to outsource American jobs, the more the public realizes NAFTA’s rigged rules need replacing.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><em class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; background-color: white; font-style: normal;" class="">Matthew Porterfield</span></em><i class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-color: white;" class="">,</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-color: white;" class=""> deputy director and adjunct professor at the Harrison Institute for Public Law at <em class="">Georgetown University</em> Law Center, moderated the panel.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">After the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate elevated ISDS from obscurity, demands to remove it from NAFTA have emerged in recent letters from </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/gop-on-isds.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">GOP members of Congress</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> and </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/small_business_letter.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">100 small business</span></a><u class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class=""> </span></u><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">leaders, and more than </span><a href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/isds-petition-release-10112017.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: blue;" class="">400,000 petitions</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> to the administration. Congressional Democrats have long opposed these terms, the removal of which was at the center of 2009 legislation enumerating a more inclusive trade policy, the Trade Reform Accountability Development and Employment (TRADE) Act, that was sponsored by 150 congressional Democrats.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class="">###</div></body></html>