On the recordOctober 8, 2015
I am really glad to be here today with the Progressive Caucus Special Order hour, and I would like to thank the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman) for all her hard work on behalf of the Progressive Caucus and on behalf of this issue on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. As we know, over the weekend and all last week, the U.S. Trade Representative Office's cooks have been in the kitchen, and they have told us now the Trans-Pacific Partnership is done; but from everything that we can tell, it is not fully baked. In fact, at best, it is half- baked when it comes to labor, environmental, and consumer concerns. Now that a final deal has been reached, we asked the administration to let the American public immediately see the full text of this agreement. This negotiating process has not been transparent up to this point, despite claims from the U.S. Trade Representative Office. We know that about 600 people, largely corporate CEOs, have been involved in the drafting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but not Congress, and certainly not members of the public. The secretive nature of these negotiations is compounded by the pressure to throw together this deal based on the political timelines of our negotiating partners rather than with the regard of the U.S. worker in mind.…
