Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, and colleagues, Chairman Hatch has made a number of important points this morning. I wish to follow up and give a little bit of an update on where we are and touch on one issue that has not been discussed.
First, under Chairman Hatch's leadership, both sides have been working together in good faith with respect to the amendments, and I think it would be fair to say the chairman and I are optimistic that we can have a good and fair list of amendments. That is No. 1. I wish to commend both the Democrats and the Republicans who were part of that amendment discussion.
Second, with respect to the currency issue which Chairman Hatch has addressed--and I certainly share his views--I would also sum it up by saying the Hatch-Wyden approach on currency provides a wider array of tools to deal with the currency issue without undermining our monetary policy. That is really the heart of the Hatch-Wyden proposal. We wanted to come up with the widest possible array of tools but at the same time not undermine monetary policy. That is what Janet Yellen has been concerned about. She has always been concerned about what would happen if, Heaven forbid, we had another financial crisis. She doesn't want her hands tied or the hands of the Fed tied in terms of being able to fight that challenge.
We know that during that period of quantitative easing, a number of countries said the United States was manipulating our currency. Now, of course, that was an outrageous assertion. Chairman Hatch and I certainly disagree with that, but that is what we are up against. To me, what we ought to be trying to do is to provide the widest array of tools to fight these currency manipulation issues while at the same time not undermining our monetary policy. So those are two concerns.
Now, I wish to provide an update from yesterday. Yesterday, I came to the floor because colleagues were talking about excessive secrecy in the way trade policy has been made in the past. I made clear that I have very much shared that view, and I went through in considerable detail how we have put in place a new approach that I am calling the sunshine trade policy.
In particular, what it means is that before any Member of the Senate and the House vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership or any other agreement--the American people will have that agreement in their hands for close to 4 months before any Member of the Senate or any Member of the House actually votes on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The way it works--and I thank Chairman Hatch also for his efforts to build this sunshine trade policy--is that before the President of the United States even signs the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that document has to be public for 60 days. On top of that, there are probably about another 2 months that the American people would have that document in their hands.
I know the Presiding Officer of the Senate is here. We welcomed her to the Senate. What this means is that when my colleague from West Virginia has a community meeting--and certainly people in West Virginia, like the rest of our country, care greatly about trade--people would be able to come to a townhall meeting in West Virginia with the Trans-Pacific Partnership document in their hands for close to 4 months before you or any other Member of Congress votes on it. So that is an awful lot of sunshine, Madam President, and it is long overdue. I thank Chairman Hatch again for working closely with me on this matter. This is required by law. It is required by law that the President of the United States make public the Trans-Pacific Partnership for 60 days before it is signed.
Beyond that, yesterday we talked about the labor and environmental issues. Once again, there is a very dramatic set of changes, and that is why the President and I have said this is the most progressive trade policy in our country's history.
For example, during the 1990s--my friend from Illinois is here. We remember all those fierce debates in the 1990s. One point that I think all Members now realize is that those labor and environmental positions meant very little. They weren't enforceable. They were off on the side. They were really shunted way out of real opportunities to affect the debate. That is different now because labor and environmental rights--I went through them in great detail yesterday--are now enforceable.
On the labor issue, we are going to comply with the International Labor Organization standards, the ILO. So this is going to be a very different day, and it is why the President and I have both said this is the most progressive trade policy in our country's history.
To just touch on one other topic briefly, I want to address some of the misstatements about what this trade package will and will not do. We have heard suggested, for example, that it is a backdoor route for immigration reform or action on climate change. We have heard some say that a future President could use trade deals to repeal the Affordable Care Act or water down Wall Street reforms. These hypotheticals somehow just seem to be getting more and more far-fetched. My sense is that at the rate these hypotheticals are going, one is bound to hear that a future President working on a trade deal might have second thoughts about the Louisiana Purchase.
Now, to me, it is pretty important to keep this debate grounded in facts, and the fact is that the bipartisan legislation passed by the Finance Committee says in clear terms that trade deals cannot change or override American laws or regulations. Let me repeat that. Trade deals cannot change or override American laws or regulations. But there has been an awful lot of spin out there on this point, and I want to address some of those issues this morning.
Many of the hypotheticals are centered on a common part of trade agreements called investor-state dispute settlement, also known as ISDS. Over the course of three decades with this approach in our trade agreement, our country has never lost a single dispute settlement case or paid one dime in penalties. So I have heard all kinds of discussion about this. We never lost a single dispute settlement case. We have never paid a dime in penalties. In fact, our country has been sued 17 times, and if you look at the number of years we have had it, it is not as if there is some kind of tidal wave of litigation.
Some have said that even the mere threat of a lawsuit causes laws and regulations to get watered down. Again, when you have gone 17-for-17 in dispute settlement in those cases, you have to put that upfront in this discussion.
What we know is that our country has regulations challenged nearly every day in our own domestic court system, and there are thousands of lawsuits every year. This trade promotion legislation makes it clear that companies do not have greater rights under the investor-state dispute settlement approach than they do in U.S. courts.
The fact is that our country is a safe and welcoming environment for investment, but that sure hasn't been the case all over the world. Property can be stolen, governments can dream up regulations designed to discriminate against our investors, or companies in fields such as renewable energy can be targeted and punished in unfair ways. Those are companies that we think are right at the heart of a vibrant economy--renewable energy companies--and they have been targeted.
In some places, unlike the United States, there is not a reliable court to turn to for help. This raises serious questions. What happens, for example, if a Malaysian judge decides to vote against an American company and it costs them millions? In another era, our country turned to gunboat diplomacy to protect our economic interests, but, in my view, the rule of law is a better option than military force.
It is also important to recognize that there are an increasing number of cases brought by pro-environment plaintiffs. That looks to me like a positive trend, whether it is the renewable energy companies challenging a European Union state that has rolled back incentives for solar or wind energy or the ecotourism investors suing Barbados for the discharge of sewage in a wetlands area.
Skeptics have argued that the arbiters are invariably biased in favor of corporations and that the panels that decide cases are rife with conflict. The numbers, however, tell a different story, which is that the overwhelming majority of cases are decided in favor of government. The record does not support the proposition that all of the arbiters are unprincipled individuals who allow corporations in those dispute settlements to get laws and regulations tossed out.
Finally, I want it to be clear that I will only accept a plan for dispute settlement that uses a transparent process. What is true in trade negotiations overall has to be true with dispute settlement, too. America cannot be kept in the dark. The hearing briefs, the decisions--all of the important matters must be open to the public.
My bottom line is this: The bipartisan trade legislation that is now before the Senate will go further than ever before to protect American sovereignty and affirm the fact that only democratically elected leaders write the laws in our country.
Done right, our trade policies help guarantee that American companies that have grown up here, invested here, and found opportunities to sell brand Oregon and brand America around the world are going to get the same fair treatment abroad that they get here at home.
I thank my colleague, Senator Durbin, for his patience.
I yield the floor.
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