The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the largest--and worst--trade deal you've never heard of and Republicans in Congress want to work with the Obama administration to "fast track" its passage.
Published on Dec 28, 2014
Elizabeth Warren offers her thoughts on trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
If the president is confident the TPP trade agreement is in the best interest of the United States, then he should have no concern about letting Congress propose...
"Our trade agreements should not just be good for Wall Street. It should also be good for Main Street." -- Senator Barack Obama, 2007
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), if ratified by the United States, is predicted by some to bring about widespread economic opportunity for the American worker. The Obama administration claims the TPP is expected to boost U.S. economic growth by creating new Americans jobs for small business and major corporations alike. The administration also believes Made-in-America exports will increase, labor rights will be expanded and strong environmental protections will be promoted among trade partners.
Sounds really good, right?
Yet the last time such a large scale trade agreement was ratified, hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs, weak environmental standards were continued by a partner country, and multinational corporations were givensubstantial legal protections at the expense of the average worker and consumer. The trade deal fallout I'm describing are the result of NAFTA -- which promised many of the same benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Those in Congress who voted for NAFTA can perhaps claim ignorance since no trade agreement of that scale was ever attempted prior to its ratification. No such claim can be made by the Obama administration or Congress this time.
It seems the TPP trade agreement is so good the Obama administration wants to fast-track it through Congress. Fast-tracking the TPP through Congress does an injustice to both the general welfare of the United States and the common good found at the heart of Catholic social justice. Simply put, if the TPP is good for the American people it should be able to stand scrutiny in front of Congress.
What would fast-tracking the TPP entail? Essentially, it would give full authority to the president to negotiate the trade agreement while Congress can only approve or disapprove the final deal. Such authority would strip Congress's ability to amend or filibuster what the president sends them to vote on.
Secrecy surrounding the TPP trade negotiations and the living history of NAFTA has left many Americans doubtful about the benefits of such a trade agreement.
During a 2008 Democratic primary debate, then-Senator Obama said, "... it is absolutely true that NAFTA was a mistake." Yet early in Obama's presidency, he reversed a campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA because of global economic instability. Perhaps now that the economy is on better footing, the president should worry less about fast-tracking the TPP and more on fixing existing trade agreements. The NAFTA trade agreement is between three nations. The TPP involves four times as many nations. One can only hope and pray the problems NAFTA is facing won't be four times worse if the TPP is fast-tracked and ratified.
As the president draws closer to requesting fast-track authority, centrist think tanks such as Third Way are trying to distance the TPP from NAFTA by comparing the TPP to 'more successful' trade deals since 2000. Third Way even admits NAFTA hurt some blue collar workers. Third Way and other proponents of the TPP claim they've learned from past free-trade mistakes. I find that very hard to believe.
It's difficult to believe because good intentions and assurances don't guarantee good results. As Pope Francis wrote in Evangelii Gaudium, "Each meaningful economic decision made in one part of the world has repercussions everywhere else; consequently, no government can act without regard for shared responsibility." The repercussions of such a massive trade deal calls for an inclusive and transparent debate between the president and Congress.
If the president is confident the TPP trade agreement is in the best interest of the United States, then he should have no concern about letting Congress propose amendments that can be shared with partner nations during negotiations. I understand that in any kind of negotiation there must be compromises. Yet as far as I can see, the American people don't have a seat at the table during discussions. The closest thing to representation is Congress -- which through fast-tracking is poised to surrender its voice to the president.
There are too many controversial provisions of the TPP left unresolved for to it be fast-tracked through Congress. With the history of NAFTA as our guide, it should be abundantly clear to the American people and Congress the president and his administration have a lot more work to do until the TPP can be seriously considered for ratification, let alone fast track.
Dutch communities rattled by earthquakes are upending Europe’s energy market.
Towns in the northern province of Groningen sit atop the continent’s biggest gas field, where the Dutch government says exploration by oil and gas majors Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil has triggered 196 earthquakes since 2013, damaging buildings and making home sales difficult.
Lawmakers, seeking support in provincial elections next week, have responded to residents’ complaints with a proposed cut in gas production – the second since December – in the hope that less output means fewer tremors.
The reductions would put the European Union in a predicament. Countries may have to turn to Russia to replace Dutch gas at a time when they’re trying to isolate President Vladimir Putin for his involvement in Ukraine.
Article by Isis Almeida published 10 March 2015 by Bloomberg
Dutch Quakes Toss Wrench Into Gears of Europe Gas Market
(Bloomberg) — Dutch communities rattled by earthquakes are upending Europe’s energy market.
Towns in the northern province of Groningen sit atop the continent’s biggest gas field, where the Dutch government says exploration by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. has triggered 196 earthquakes since 2013, damaging buildings and making home sales difficult. Lawmakers, seeking support in provincial elections March 18, have responded to residents’ complaints with a proposed cut in gas production, the second since December, in the hope that less output means fewer tremors.
The reductions would put the European Union in a predicament. Countries may have to turn to Russia to replace Dutch gas at a time when they’re trying to isolate President Vladimir Putin for his involvement in Ukraine. For the Netherlands, the bloc’s biggest gas producer, less gas could reduce national income by 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
“The coalition parties are overall under pressure,” said Frank van Doorn, head of gas trading at Vattenfall Energy Trading Netherlands NV, the country’s largest retail supplier. “They have to do something to make voters happy and at the same time balance the impact on the Dutch government budget.”
Dutch gas added 0.6 percent to settle at 21.75 euros a megawatt-hour on Tuesday, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg.
Progressive Cuts
The country counts on its energy industry for about 11 percent of gross domestic product. Export customers include Germany, Belgium and the U.K. The Netherlands produced 70 billion cubic meters of gas on- and offshore last year, according to data from network operator Gasunie Transport Services. That’s more than Italy’s total 2014 demand. The Groningen field accounted for 61 percent of that and generated an estimated 10.7 billion euros in revenue, according to data from Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij, or NAM, the joint Shell-Exxon venture that owns 40 percent of the field, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Dutch lawmakers have progressively cut the 2015 output target for Groningen gas. In December, they announced a 7.3 percent reduction. An additional cut, proposed Feb. 9, sent prices up 11 percent that week — more than in the period following Russia’s Crimea incursion. Now lawmakers are proposing an 11 percent cutback for the full year.
Earthquakes Reported
Earthquakes have been reported in places such as the U.S. state of Oklahoma, where exploration companies drill horizontally and blast chemicals, sand and water into rock to extract fuel, a process known as fracking. Only conventional, vertical wells have been drilled in Groningen, making the tremors there unique, said Heleen Haverkort, a spokeswoman at the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
In the Groningen village of ’t Zandt, artist Wout van Mullem, 57, said he decided to make his house earthquake-proof after almost five years of unsuccessfully trying to sell it. The structure is one of many in the area that suffered from cracking walls or shifting foundations.
“You have to face the reality that Dutch society needs the gas from Groningen,” Van Mullem said. “We have to find a way to extract gas from the field in an acceptable manner for everybody.”
Down the road, Jan Boer, 75, is waiting for the community center in the village of Leermens to be reinforced. Angled wooden beams support the external walls and the interior of two rooms. And near NAM’s office in Loppersum, where 3,000 of the area’s 10,000 inhabitants live, paintings in the Petrus and Paulus Church dating from the 1500s have needed restoration.
Groningen Tremors
Tremors in the province started in the 1980s and intensified in the 2000s, according to NAM, the Shell-Exxon venture. The biggest quake, with its epicenter in Loppersum, measured 3.6 on the Richter scale in 2012, resulting in about 12,000 damage claims, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
While NAM said it has plans to strengthen 3,000 buildings in Groningen province this year and has set aside 1.2 billion euros for projects including repairs and the strengthening of homes, Loppersum Mayor Albert Rodenboog said initial calculations show that 30,000 buildings will need reinforcement, costing as much as 6 billion euros.
The government ignored the security of citizens in Groningen for years, according to a February report from the Dutch Safety Board. Trust was already low, Rodenboog said, because in 2013, after the State Supervision of Mines said gas production needed to be cut to keep residents safe, output in Groningen province rose to the highest in 32 years.
Earthquake Intensity
Cutting production will likely reduce the frequency and intensity of the earthquakes, according to Harry van der Meijden, inspector general of the State Supervision of Mines.
NAM takes a different position. Earthquakes aren’t only caused by the volumes of gas produced, said Sander van Rootselaar, a NAM spokesman. When gas production in Groningen climbed to a record in the 1970s, there were no tremors, suggesting other factors may also have an influence, he said.
The Netherlands will decide July 1 whether to reduce 2015 extraction to a maximum 35 billion cubic meters with 2 billion of that to be produced only if needed, Henk Kamp, the minister of economic affairs, said Feb. 12.
Gas production can drop to between 27 billion and 33 billion cubic meters, depending on weather and other factors, and still meet domestic demand and honor export contracts, said Anton Buijs, a spokesman for GasTerra BV, the only marketer of Groningen gas.
As for consumption, the Netherlands depends on Russia for about 4 percent of its gas, but that could increase depending on how much the government decides to cut back, Haverkort said.
Prices Jumped
While European gas prices jumped on the Dutch plans, they have since erased gains as Russia started boosting supplies and more cargoes of the liquefied fuel arrived as Asian prices collapsed to near European levels.
The U.K., Netherlands and Belgium received 24 LNG cargoes in the first two months of the year, more than double a year earlier, according to port authority and ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The fact that Asian LNG prices are falling is certainly helping,” said Van Doorn of Vattenfall. “There’s also a good chance that Russia and Norway can put more gas into the European market without driving down prices. There’s no need to panic.”
SEE BELOW FOR THE 1001STTIME THE REITERATION OF DEMAND PAYMENT OF RETIREMENT PAY WHICH SHELL REFUSED TO HONOR IN THE PRESENCE AND DEEMED APPROVAL OF THE HONORABLE MAGISTRATES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE PHILIPPINES
