Yeah you're wrong. It will ban GMO labeling , country of origin labeling and many other of the same types of consumer information that, people think is important to them (which I actually don't except that other people do want these things and they have the right to know )
Letter form Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), Ranking Member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, to the United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk:
from: http://delauro.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=406:-delauro-food-safety-critical-issue-in-upcoming-trade-talks&catid=7:2011-press-releases&Itemid=23
First, past FTAs incorporate the WTOâ(TM)s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and technical barriers to trade rules, which are deeply problematic. These rules set ceilings on signatory countriesâ(TM) domestic food safety standards. As a result, WTO panels have ruled against the U.S. meat country-of-origin labeling requirements and voluntary dolphin-safe tuna labels in challenges brought by other WTO countries. We must learn from the record of WTO implementation and modify the food safety-related rules of U.S. trade pacts to best protect the public health, starting with a TPP FTA.
The FDA has also engaged in extensive harmonization of food safety standards, as required by the WTO SPS rules and our past FTAs. If a TPP FTA is to include food safety harmonization, then it must ensure existing U.S. standards are not weakened. I believe this should include requiring that harmonization may only be conducted on the basis of raising standards toward the best standards of any signatory country and that, with respect to the United States, such international-standard setting should provide the public an opportunity to comment while maintaining an open and transparent process.
In addition, the past FTA model includes the establishment of new SPS committees to speed up implementation of mechanisms to facilitate increased trade volumes, including âoeequivalenceâ determinations. The equivalence rule requires the United States to permit imports of meat, poultry and now possibly seafood products that do not necessarily meet U.S. food safety standards. I firmly believe that all food sold to American consumers must be required to meet U.S. safety standards, and that a TPP FTA should not include equivalence rules as the basis for the United States accepting food imports.
Finally, past FTAs allow for private enforcement of extensive foreign investor rights. Under these rules, foreign food corporations operating within the United States are empowered to demand compensation from the U.S. government in foreign tribunals established under the United Nations and World Bank if U.S. regulatory actions undermine their expected future profits. Even when the United States successfully defends against such attacks, such as in the NAFTA investor-state case brought by the Canadian Cattlemen for Fair Trade over the U.S. ban on imports of live Canadian cattle after the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Canada, the initial filing of the challenge has a chilling effect on policymaking and the U.S. government must spend millions on a legal defense. Accordingly, I believe a TPP FTA must not include investor-state rules that would allow corporations to weaken U.S. food safety in foreign tribunals thereby unnecessarily placing American consumers at risk.
The food safety issues raised by the TPP FTA negotiations are expansive and in many instances already controversial. Failure to deal with these issues during the negotiations will only create more opposition to a prospective agreement. I therefore urge you to act in the interest of public health and maintain the United Statesâ(TM) strong leadership on food safety by making the health of Americans our top priority in this weekâ(TM)s negotiations in Chicago and beyond.
But I understand why you are confused. The TPP is so secret that the only document we have is what was leaked on Wikileaks. Congresspeople who want to read it have to schedule an appointment, enter a room without an aide, and can bring no writing implement or paper to take notes. There's more:
from:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/10/4/a_corporate_trojan_horse_obama_pushes
JUAN GONZÃLEZ: Well, Lori, about that secrecy, even members of Congress have been severely limited in what they can learn, and that's only after the revelations about the total secrecy that this whole process began with. Could you talk about what members of Congress are allowed to know and how?
LORI WALLACH: Well, what's really important for people to know - and this gets to what you started out with about Fast Track. Congress has exclusive constitutional authority over trade. It's kind of like the Boston Tea Party hangover. After having a king just impose tariffs, in that case on tea, the founders said, "We need to put all things about trade, international commerce, in the hands of Congress, the most diffuse part of the elected representation, not the executive, the king." So Congress has all this authority. They're supposed to be exclusively in control. But until this June, they were not even allowed to see the draft text.
And it was only after a big, great fuss was kicked up by a lot of members - 150 of them wrote last year - that finally members of Congress, upon request for the particular chapter, can have a government administration official bring them a chapter. Their staff is thrown out of the room. They can't take detailed notes. They're not supposed to talk about what they saw. And they can, without staff to help them figure out what the technical language is, look at a chapter. This is in contrast to, say, even what the Bush administration did. The last time we had one of these mega-NAFTA expansion attempts was the Free Trade Area of the Americas. And in that instance, in 2001, that whole draft text was released to the public by the U.S. government on the official government websites. So, this is extraordinary secrecy, and members of Congress aren't supposed to tell anyone what they've read. So, for instance, you know, Alan Grayson, who was one of the guys who helped to get the text released, Alan Grayson said, "I can tell you it's very bad for the future of America. I just can't tell you why." That's obscene.
This would rewrite wide swaths of our laws. And again, it's mainly not about trade. So, if we have this agreement in effect, for instance, it would be a big push for fracking. Now you would say, "Why fracking?" Because it doesn't allow us to have bans on liquid natural gas exports. Or, if this were in effect, we couldn't ensure the safety of the food we feed our families. We have to import, for instance, fish and shrimp that we know, from the limited inspection that's done, is extremely dangerous from certain kinds of growing ponds that are contaminated, etc., in some of the TPP countries. Or, for instance, some of the financial reforms where the banksters were finally regulated would be rolled back. All of this, and it would be privately enforceable by certain foreign corporations.
