6 ms·

To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to

by dak1 11y ago

To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to offer amendments to it). In reality, almost all legislation is written behind closed doors today (a public Git-for-Law would be a wonderful project), and is then sponsored by a member of Congress and goes (usually) to Committee. Non-trade agreements with foreign powers are also negotiated "behind closed doors", because the negotiations themselves tend to be quite sensitive, and the negotiating positions of each country are also considered highly sensitive. The real issue is probably that the Trade Advisory Committees are not required by law to be balanced between corporate interests and public advocacy groups (there are multiple representatives from such groups, although it's not currently well balanced).

shkkmo 11y ago
Do you have a source for that? My quick look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) The procedure section shows Congress to have the ability to pass it to committees for at most 45 days and then they have at most 15 days after that to vote on it. That seems to imply that it would be public for a maximum of 2 months, but I don't know much about this area.
- mikecb 11y ago
  That article describes previous grants of trade promotion authority, while this grant of authority, by all reports, will require more stringent and lengthier consultation and public notice requirements. Edit: Sec. 6 contains the public notice requirements: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/995/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/995...
- dak1 11y ago
  It's not spelled out in any sentence where you'll see "must be public for 4 months" in a single line, and I can see how that wording is confusing, however, the basic timeline is: # Executive Actions - Negotiation 1. 90 day notification to begin negotiations 2. Negotiations begin 3. Negotiations conclude 4. 180 day notification prior to signing agreement 5. 90 day notification of intention to sign agreement 6. 60 days prior to signing, release of agreement text (first 2 months) 7. 30 days after notification of intention to sign, submission of Advisory Committee Reports 8. Agreement signed (not law yet) # Reporting and Mock Markup 9. 60 days after agreement is signed, list of required changes in law due 10. 105 days after agreement is signed, USITC report due 11. Mock markups (no time schedule) 12. 30 days prior to implementing legislation, final text submitted (3rd month) # Congressional Consideration and Implementation 13. Implementing bill introduced in House and Senate (no timeline) 14. Within 45 days, House Ways and Means must report bill 15. Within 15 days, House must vote on bill 16. Within 15 days, Senate Finance Committee must report bill 17. Within 15 days, Senate must vote on bill 18. Bill signed into public law (no timeline) 19. President implements bill by proclamation (no deadline) So the Bill can spend a MAXIMUM of 90 days in the House and Senate; however, prior to even getting there, the text of the bill must have been public for a MINIMUM of 90 days (which is like 4-5 months in Congress time). So even at hyper speed, the text would be public for 3 months, and in reality at least 4 months. More likely, the text will be public for 6-8 months before it is passed. Source: Congressional Research Service (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf)
shmerl 11y ago
> To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to offer amendments to it). So not only it completely defeats the point (if you can't make amendments) it gives a joke of a time in comparison with years of development of such agreements when all kind of nasty stuff can be sneaked it which can change local laws. In short - it's not a democratic process at all, it's a farce of institutionalized corruption.
- dak1 11y ago
  This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations), the US Congress could move the bar. The President still has pressure to deliver a sound agreement though or Congress can simply reject it. With regard to the timeline, it takes a lot longer to negotiate terms with multiple actors, where a single sentence or word could be debated for days and months, than it takes to read and understand the effects of the final text.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    > This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations) It's easily fixable - make negotiations public to begin with. Doesn't WIPO follow such practice anyway? So, the only reason not to make it public is to hide something that public will not accept. It should be a simple rule - any negotiations which affect the legal system should be public. Period. And stuff like TPP clearly does affect laws.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Reasonable people can debate whether it's helpful or harmful to precede public ratification of a trade deal with secret negotiations, but I don't think reasonable people can argue that the only reason to do secret negotiations is to slip toxic provisions past a suspicious public. Trade deals happen between whole countries, not individual businesses. Each company compromises many hundreds of businesses. In any trade deal, there will be winner companies and loser companies. The negotiators for each country need to strike terms so that the wins pay for the losses and then some. It's much harder to do that if all the big companies that stand to lose from a deal get a veto vote early in the process.

by dak1 11y ago

shkkmo 11y ago

Do you have a source for that? My quick look at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_track_(trade) The procedure section shows Congress to have the ability to pass it to committees for at most 45 days and then they have at most 15 days after that to vote on it. That seems to imply that it would be public for a maximum of 2 months, but I don't know much about this area.

mikecb 11y ago
That article describes previous grants of trade promotion authority, while this grant of authority, by all reports, will require more stringent and lengthier consultation and public notice requirements. Edit: Sec. 6 contains the public notice requirements: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/995/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/995...
dak1 11y ago
It's not spelled out in any sentence where you'll see "must be public for 4 months" in a single line, and I can see how that wording is confusing, however, the basic timeline is: # Executive Actions - Negotiation 1. 90 day notification to begin negotiations 2. Negotiations begin 3. Negotiations conclude 4. 180 day notification prior to signing agreement 5. 90 day notification of intention to sign agreement 6. 60 days prior to signing, release of agreement text (first 2 months) 7. 30 days after notification of intention to sign, submission of Advisory Committee Reports 8. Agreement signed (not law yet) # Reporting and Mock Markup 9. 60 days after agreement is signed, list of required changes in law due 10. 105 days after agreement is signed, USITC report due 11. Mock markups (no time schedule) 12. 30 days prior to implementing legislation, final text submitted (3rd month) # Congressional Consideration and Implementation 13. Implementing bill introduced in House and Senate (no timeline) 14. Within 45 days, House Ways and Means must report bill 15. Within 15 days, House must vote on bill 16. Within 15 days, Senate Finance Committee must report bill 17. Within 15 days, Senate must vote on bill 18. Bill signed into public law (no timeline) 19. President implements bill by proclamation (no deadline) So the Bill can spend a MAXIMUM of 90 days in the House and Senate; however, prior to even getting there, the text of the bill must have been public for a MINIMUM of 90 days (which is like 4-5 months in Congress time). So even at hyper speed, the text would be public for 3 months, and in reality at least 4 months. More likely, the text will be public for 6-8 months before it is passed. Source: Congressional Research Service (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf)

shmerl 11y ago

> To be fair, any FTA (including the TPP) will be made public for a minimum of 4 months before Congress can vote on it (although with TPA they won't be allowed to offer amendments to it). So not only it completely defeats the point (if you can't make amendments) it gives a joke of a time in comparison with years of development of such agreements when all kind of nasty stuff can be sneaked it which can change local laws. In short - it's not a democratic process at all, it's a farce of institutionalized corruption.

dak1 11y ago
This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations), the US Congress could move the bar. The President still has pressure to deliver a sound agreement though or Congress can simply reject it. With regard to the timeline, it takes a lot longer to negotiate terms with multiple actors, where a single sentence or word could be debated for days and months, than it takes to read and understand the effects of the final text.
- shmerl 11y ago
  > This has been pretty standard for decades. If amendments were allowed, other actors couldn't negotiate with the US in good faith since after an agreement was made and the text made public (and remember, they have their own public political considerations) It's easily fixable - make negotiations public to begin with. Doesn't WIPO follow such practice anyway? So, the only reason not to make it public is to hide something that public will not accept. It should be a simple rule - any negotiations which affect the legal system should be public. Period. And stuff like TPP clearly does affect laws.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Reasonable people can debate whether it's helpful or harmful to precede public ratification of a trade deal with secret negotiations, but I don't think reasonable people can argue that the only reason to do secret negotiations is to slip toxic provisions past a suspicious public. Trade deals happen between whole countries, not individual businesses. Each company compromises many hundreds of businesses. In any trade deal, there will be winner companies and loser companies. The negotiators for each country need to strike terms so that the wins pay for the losses and then some. It's much harder to do that if all the big companies that stand to lose from a deal get a veto vote early in the process.