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Revealed Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The TPP

Anomalism

Anomalism

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Thoughts?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-industry-lobbyists-basically-wrote-tpp.shtml

Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as "national security information" (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic to sue. As part of that lawsuit, the USTR has now released a bunch of internal emails concerning TPP negotiations, and IP Watch has a full writeup showing how industry lobbyists influenced the TPP agreement, to the point that one is even openly celebrating that the USTR version copied his own text word for word. What is striking in the emails is not that government negotiators seek expertise and advice from leading industry figures. But the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other stakeholders.

The article highlights numerous examples of what appear to be very chummy relationships between the USTR and the "cleared advisors" from places like the RIAA, the MPAA and the ESA. They regularly share text and have very informal discussions, scheduling phone calls and get togethers to further discuss. This really isn't that surprising, given that the USTR is somewhat infamous for its revolving door with lobbyists who work on these issues. In fact, one of the main USTR officials in the emails that IP Watch got is Stan McCoy, who was the long term lead negotiator on "intellectual property" issues. But he's no longer at the USTR -- he now works for the MPAA.
 
The TPP needs to be killed with fire.
 
Allowing lobbyists to write laws, etc., frees up our elected officials to focus on more important issues like fundraising.
 
in other news, water is wet, and the sky is blue.
 
I am not an opponent to free trade agreements, but the fact that this deal has been written out of the public eye and not available for scrutiny puts me in the "kill it with fire" camp on general principle.
 
The first of these trade pacts occurred in 1985 for Israel .
 
The TPP is the next major iteration of the present U.S. trade paradigm which began with the introduction of NAFTA under president George H. W. Bush and its ratification under president Bill Clinton. What do I think of it? I think both the TPP [see here] and the present trade paradigm [see here] are very damaging to American workers, both born and yet to be born, and government interests in very important ways ranging from lost revenues to increased social services to national security compromises to lost competitive economic advantages, etc...
 
Well, I'm sure we'll see a lot of criticisms about this bill once it is passed. Maybe a few Republican states will bring lawsuits against it just like they did Obamacare? Doubt it. ;)
 
I believe Congress can modify or repeal treaties by subsequent legislative action, even if this amounts to a violation of the treaty under international law, with the most recent changes (or repeal) enforced by U.S. courts entirely independent of whether the international community still considers old treaty obligations binding upon the U.S. [see here].

Historically, nations have claimed sovereignty and withdrawn from treaties for all sorts of reasons and with all sorts of consequences ranging from absolutely nothing to another nation or nations declaring war on them for treaty violation(s). If a nation's withdrawal from treaty is successful, then its obligations under treaty are eventually considered terminated.

Of course, despite Republicans in the 114th U.S. Congress enjoying a 56.7% voting share, the GOP's trade platform is squarely in favor of free trade agreements. So while they have the Congressional political power to amend or nullify the TPP, they'll never do it in the context of their present trade platform.

This means that if there are red states that actually possess a majority of Republicans that are actually and strongly against the TPP, then they would have to attack it on constitutional grounds in the judicial system as you're stating.


Hatuey said:
Well, I'm sure we'll see a lot of criticisms about this bill once it is passed. Maybe a few Republican states will bring lawsuits against it just like they did Obamacare? Doubt it. ;)
Click to expand...
 
I have no problem with competent people writing trade pacts... or even legislation....
I don't even have much of a problem keeping it out of the public's eye while negotiations are ongoing.

but if the final product isn't made available for the public for a good period of time before it's passed into law, I'll have a definite problem.


the last thing i want, especially when speaking about highly complex trade pacts, is our doltish politicians writing a goddamn thing... while multitudes of extraordinarily stupid and agenda driven people chime in with their ignorant nonsense in a play-by-play of retarded balderdash.
 
I'm all for American businesses increasing exports of products and services. In fact I demand it. I just don't want the government involved in it. I oppose the agreement not because of its goal but because of the methodology.
 
U.S. exports have steadily increased. For example, in 1991 U.S. exports totaled $578,344 million but in 2014 it was $2,343,205 million. However, the export of U.S. goods has a glaring discrepancy between domestically produced exports and exports produced in foreign countries for a material percentage of U.S. exports are simply being shipped overseas for assembly or processing and then shipped back to the U.S. as final products. These are not products destined for consumption by foreign consumers or that use U.S. labor yet comprise a material share of U.S. exports [see here and here].

Also, when you view U.S. exports in terms of real dollars, the increase between 1991 and 2014 is not all that significant. Using the CPI calculator, we see that $578,344 million in 1991 is worth $1,005,248 million in 2014 real dollars. Now we input the real dollar 1991 sum and the 2014 sum into a percent increase online calculator. So in 23 years, U.S. exports only increased 133% in terms of real dollar exports. Though certainly not a 1:1 comparison, consider China's increase in export of goods into the U.S. between 1991 and 2014 rose 2,360% [see here].

In fact, the U.S. negative trade deficit imbalance rose from -$31,135 million dollars in 1991 to -$508,324 in 2014 [see here]. Though the U.S. trade imbalance has fluctuated over the years, it has never come close to returning to the low levels preceding the implementation of the "free" trade agreements which began in the late 1980's.

The present iteration of "free" trade agreements which began with the 'Free Trade Agreement' between Canada and the U.S. and the subsequent NAFTA agreement that superseded it resulted in many negative and undesirable consequences including loss of jobs, depressed real dollar wages and benefits, rising income inequality, depressed household savings, increased government spending on social services, reduction of important domestic job sectors, depressed profitability for domestically produced goods and services, decreased investment in R&D, lost innovation/invention/idea creation and their resulting competitive advantages, compromised national security (and it is also argued national sovereignty), etc...

But I digress. My main point in replying was to point out that accounting water pumped from a tank into a bucket with a hole in the bottom to which a hose is attached that feeds the water back into the tank as water exports is fallacious. You have to plug the hole first, and then you can correctly account for the amount of water exports used to actually fill the bucket.


fmw said:
I'm all for American businesses increasing exports of products and services. In fact I demand it. I just don't want the government involved in it. I oppose the agreement not because of its goal but because of the methodology.
Click to expand...
 
Thrilla said:
I have no problem with competent people writing trade pacts... or even legislation....
I don't even have much of a problem keeping it out of the public's eye while negotiations are ongoing.

but if the final product isn't made available for the public for a good period of time before it's passed into law, I'll have a definite problem.


the last thing i want, especially when speaking about highly complex trade pacts, is our doltish politicians writing a goddamn thing... while multitudes of extraordinarily stupid and agenda driven people chime in with their ignorant nonsense in a play-by-play of retarded balderdash.
Click to expand...
That's a point of view I hadn't considered. Thank you. I don't trust congress to write a birthday card.
 
Anomalism said:
Thoughts?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-industry-lobbyists-basically-wrote-tpp.shtml

Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as "national security information" (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic to sue. As part of that lawsuit, the USTR has now released a bunch of internal emails concerning TPP negotiations, and IP Watch has a full writeup showing how industry lobbyists influenced the TPP agreement, to the point that one is even openly celebrating that the USTR version copied his own text word for word. What is striking in the emails is not that government negotiators seek expertise and advice from leading industry figures. But the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other stakeholders.

The article highlights numerous examples of what appear to be very chummy relationships between the USTR and the "cleared advisors" from places like the RIAA, the MPAA and the ESA. They regularly share text and have very informal discussions, scheduling phone calls and get togethers to further discuss. This really isn't that surprising, given that the USTR is somewhat infamous for its revolving door with lobbyists who work on these issues. In fact, one of the main USTR officials in the emails that IP Watch got is Stan McCoy, who was the long term lead negotiator on "intellectual property" issues. But he's no longer at the USTR -- he now works for the MPAA.
Click to expand...

This is the Corporate State in action. If course that's what happened. This is what the Republocrats love to do.
 
Interestingly, originally the TPP was not U.S. conceived nor was the U.S. even a party to it. It was a proposed agreement between New Zealand, Chile, and Singapore which the U.S., under the Bush administration, became involved in during 2008.

When Obama became president, his administration began pushing "free trade" with all its might signing multiple new trade deals with terms mirroring those of the Bushs and Clinton. Obama is even more driven than Bush was on the TPP and has stated that he will defy his own party to get the TPP through.
 
In Jan. 2015 1 of the very 1st things the new Congress did was vote on and pass legislation that further eased regulations on the banks and Wall Street.

Guess who wrote those bills? The lobbyists. The banking industry. That's who.

Face it, the Corps. are running things now.
 
Corporations cannot vote nor run for public office. People vote and run for public office. If Corporations "are running things now," ultimately it's because the voters and those they elect to public office are letting them and that is unfortunate as it represents a populace ceding away their political responsibility and power.


SenorXm/Sirius said:
In Jan. 2015 1 of the very 1st things the new Congress did was vote on and pass legislation that further eased regulations on the banks and Wall Street.

Guess who wrote those bills? The lobbyists. The banking industry. That's who.

Face it, the Corps. are running things now.
Click to expand...
 
It's a good thing congress eased their insider trader rules just in time to pass the TPP.
 
reinoe said:
It's a good thing congress eased their insider trader rules just in time to pass the TPP.
Click to expand...

I can't find it anymore, so anyone who wants to can take shots at me.

But years ago I read something that said in 1961, when JFK was sworn in there were about 30 lobbyists in DC. Now there's about 35,000.

If true that says it all.
 
Anomalism said:
Thoughts?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-industry-lobbyists-basically-wrote-tpp.shtml

Back in 2013, we wrote about a FOIA lawsuit that was filed by William New at IP Watch. After trying to find out more information on the TPP by filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and being told that they were classified as "national security information" (no, seriously), New teamed up with Yale's Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic to sue. As part of that lawsuit, the USTR has now released a bunch of internal emails concerning TPP negotiations, and IP Watch has a full writeup showing how industry lobbyists influenced the TPP agreement, to the point that one is even openly celebrating that the USTR version copied his own text word for word. What is striking in the emails is not that government negotiators seek expertise and advice from leading industry figures. But the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other stakeholders.

The article highlights numerous examples of what appear to be very chummy relationships between the USTR and the "cleared advisors" from places like the RIAA, the MPAA and the ESA. They regularly share text and have very informal discussions, scheduling phone calls and get togethers to further discuss. This really isn't that surprising, given that the USTR is somewhat infamous for its revolving door with lobbyists who work on these issues. In fact, one of the main USTR officials in the emails that IP Watch got is Stan McCoy, who was the long term lead negotiator on "intellectual property" issues. But he's no longer at the USTR -- he now works for the MPAA.
Click to expand...

Yes, we've known this for some time. There's 28 separate committees negotiating the US's interests in TPP. These committees are 85% composed of corporate execs and industry lobbyists. Trade and labor unions, environmental groups, some church's and others oppose TPP.
 
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