Sierra Club: TPP Text is 'Concrete Evidence' of Toxic Deal

WASHINGTON, DC –(ENEWSPF)–November 5, 2015. Today, the U.S. Trade Representative published the text of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-nation international trade deal. This comes after years of closed-door negotiations by trade officials and select corporate advisers and years of opposition and demands of transparency from the Sierra Club and millions of Americans. Trade experts at the Sierra Club will soon release a detailed analysis of the environmental implications of the deal, but an initial assessment is that, as predicted, the TPP would threaten the health of communities, the environment, and our climate.

In response, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune released the following statement:

“We now have concrete evidence that the Trans-Pacific Partnership threatens our families, our communities, and our environment. It’s no surprise that the deal is rife with polluter giveaways that would undermine decades of environmental progress, threaten our climate, and fail to adequately protect wildlife because big polluters helped write the deal.

“The words ‘climate change’ don’t even appear in the text, a dead giveaway that this isn’t a 21st-century trade deal. It sets us back further, empowering fossil fuel corporations to challenge our public health and climate safeguards in unaccountable trade tribunals while increasing dirty fossil fuel exports and fracking.

“Many provisions in the deal’s environment chapter are toothless and fail to offer any of the protections proponents of this deal have touted. Some provisions even fail to meet the minimum standards of environmental protection established in the ‘fast-track’ law and included in past trade deals negotiated under the George W. Bush administration.