{"id":158814,"date":"2015-06-12T06:32:40","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T06:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=158814"},"modified":"2015-06-12T06:32:40","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T06:32:40","slug":"impending-fast-track-vote-impacts-recovery-food-safety-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/impending-fast-track-vote-impacts-recovery-food-safety-medicare\/","title":{"rendered":"Impending Fast Track Vote: Impacts on Recovery, Food Safety, Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – The\u00a0Hill<\/em>\u00a0reports: \u201cGOP, Obama on cusp of fast-track trade victory<\/a>.\u201d \u201cHouse Republicans have set the stage for a high-stakes vote\u00a0Friday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0to grant President Obama fast-track trade authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

PATRICK WOODALL,pwoodall at fwwatch.org,\u00a0@foodandwater<\/a><\/p>\n

Research director and senior policy advocate for Food & Water Watch, Woodall said today: \u201cWith Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership now on its way to the House floor, it\u2019s time for our Representatives to stand up to the so-called free trade attacks on common sense protections for public health, the environment and consumers. Fast Track will unleash havoc on American workers, offshore millions more jobs, and exacerbate the economic inequality that widens the gulf between economic \u2018haves\u2019 and \u2018have nots.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cFast Track would even make it harder for American consumers to know the ingredients and origins of their food because even a label can be considered a trade barrier. Free trade deals like the TPP have been used to attack straightforward food labeling like the country of origin labeling (COOL) laws for beef, pork and chicken. The Fast Track legislation specifically identifies labeling genetically modified foods (GMO labels) as illegitimate trade barriers. All this and more is tucked into the secret fine print of the TPP. The Congress must reject a Fast Track for the secret TPP that will harm workers, the environment and consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALAN TONELSON, ATonelson at aol.com,\u00a0@alantonelson<\/a>
\nTonelson is author of\u00a0The Race to the Bottom: Why A Global Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards<\/em>. His recent pieces include \u201cTrade deals have been both growth and recovery killers<\/a>.\u201d He regularly writes on trade and other issues on his\u00a0RealityChek<\/a>\u00a0blog.<\/p>\n

SEAN FLYNN, sflynn at wcl.american.edu,\u00a0@sean_fiil_flynn<\/a><\/p>\n

Flynn is associate director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at the Washington College of Law at American University. He contributes to\u00a0infojustice.org<\/a>\u00a0and just wrote the piece \u201cTPP Leak Clarifies Application to Medicare Drug Prices<\/a>,\u201d which states: \u201cTwo previous agreements \u2013 with Korea and with Australia \u2013 contained restrictions on drug pricing programs, but were often thought not to apply to any U.S. program. The texts of those agreements left any U.S. application ambiguous. But new language in the TPP leak makes clear the application of disciplines to \u2018The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), with respect to CMS\u2019s role in making Medicare national coverage determinations.’\u201d<\/p>\n

MICHAEL BRUNE, via Dan Byrnes, daniel.byrnes at sierraclub.org,\u00a0@sierraclub<\/a><\/p>\n

Sierra Club executive director Brune said: \u201cThis fast-track bill is toxic for Congress and for our air, water, and climate. We\u2019ve seen this all before. This bill replicates an old, failed model of trade authority that rushes deals through Congress and strips out the vital protections and oversight that ensure trade pacts benefit American communities, workers, and the environment. Americans who care about clean air and clean water won\u2019t support a bill that takes away the ability of those we elected to protect our basic needs. Members of Congress need to carefully evaluate the costs and consequences of trade deals on our economy and environment \u2013 not to haphazardly push pacts over the finish line. That\u2019s why we are calling on members of Congress to take back the reins on trade and toss aside the failed fast track model.\u201d<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy<\/a> (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON – The\u00a0Hill\u00a0reports: \u201cGOP, Obama on cusp of fast-track trade victory.\u201d \u201cHouse Republicans have set the stage for a high-stakes vote\u00a0Friday\u00a0to grant President Obama fast-track trade authority.\u201d PATRICK WOODALL,pwoodall at fwwatch.org,\u00a0@foodandwater Research director and senior policy advocate for Food & Water Watch, Woodall said today: \u201cWith Fast Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership now on its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-158814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}