On Friday, the US House of Reps overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have ensured the acceptance of the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership treaty without any chance to debate or amend its clauses.
The Obama administration had asked Congress for "fast track" authority, under which Congress would only have been allowed a yes/no vote on TPP's many complex and controversial clauses, as well as those in TPP's sister treaties, such as TTIA. TPP has been negotiated under farcical levels of secrecy: Congress was not informed of the treaty's language until the last possible minute, then was threatened with jail if they talked about it in public; ranking senators were allowed to read the treaty, but not take notes. Meanwhile corporate lobbyists have been kept abreast of developments at every turn, and were even able to write parts of the treaty to benefit their employers.
TPP includes many objectionable clauses, including extensive limits on online privacy and free speech; as well as the notorious investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses, which gave offshore companies the power to sue to repeal environmental and labor laws that negatively affected their profits.
Obama was fully committed to fast-track for TPP. He even visited Congress in person prior to the vote. The Senate had already green-lit the bill. But Congress stopped it.
For now.
House Majority Leader Boehner is committed to passing it, and has pulled out every procedural trick to keep it alive. There will likely be another vote this week.
Not willing to give up, the Republican House leadership voted to force yet another vote on TAA next week. If TAA passes next week, all of these parts could still move together as a single package, straight to the President's desk. If the TAA fails next week, then Fast Track will move back to the Senate to see if it can pass without TAA—giving us another chance to oppose it.
Now it's going to take somewhat of a miracle for the President and House Republicans to change their mind on TAA by such a large margin (around 180 votes) by Tuesday—that's their deadline on holding that second TAA vote. But we know that the White House and proponents of these secretive, undemocratic agreements are willing to do almost anything to pass these deals with even less oversight from Congress.
>So while it's not perfect, today's vote was a temporary defeat of Fast Track. This vote was the result of a powerful, diverse coalition of organizations and individuals that came together to fight Fast Track over the last several years. We can all celebrate our collective work to stop the passage of secret, undemocratic agreements.
House Deals Major Blow to Obama's Secret Anti-User Trade Agenda
[Maira Sutton/EFF]
