Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from West Virginia, Senator Manchin. I thank him for his leadership. I thank him for his independence. I thank him for his partnership as we push for greater transparency on this very important trade bill.

In the past few weeks, the public has heard a lot about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade deal the United States is negotiating with 11 other trade companies. The public has heard from supporters that it is the most progressive trade deal in history--a deal that will benefit working families and small businesses--and they have heard from opponents that it will only tilt the playing field further in favor of multinational corporations and leave workers and everyone else behind.

The public has heard a lot, but in all that time they have never actually seen the deal itself. In fact, the press hasn't seen the deal, economists haven't seen the deal, legal experts haven't seen the deal. Most everyone in America hasn't seen the deal. Why? Because the administration has classified the deal, making it illegal for any of those people to read it.

Members of Congress, as Senator Manchin said, can read it so long as they go into a secret room and don't leave with any notes. But even Members of Congress are prohibited from talking about the details in public or discussing the details with the people they were sent to Washington to represent. And yet, in the next day or two, the Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to grease the skids to make that secret trade deal--the TPP--the law of the land.

This isn't how democracy is supposed to work. One of our fundamental principles of representative government is transparency. Our government is supposed to keep things secret from the people only if it has a very good reason to do so. So why is this trade deal a secret? I just want to go over the answers I have heard so far, the reasons.

Some say the administration can't release the deal because the deal isn't finished yet. OK, so maybe there are some unresolved issues, but everyone agrees the deal is nearly complete. It is close enough to being done that its supporters can confidently claim it is the most progressive trade deal in history. If you are sure that is right, then show it to us. If some parts aren't finished, then show us the parts that are finished. Don't keep every single word of the deal classified.

Others say releasing the text now would be tipping our hand in continuing negotiations, but that doesn't make any sense either. Our government has already shared the details of our positions with the other TPP countries, and those countries have shared details with us. That is how negotiations work. Publicly releasing what our negotiating partners have already seen couldn't possibly undermine our negotiations because, by definition, our negotiating partners have already seen it.

Here is another argument I have heard. Releasing the text of an unfinished international agreement simply isn't done; it is a breach of protocol. Well, that is not true either. As Senator Manchin pointed out, in 2001, President George W. Bush publicly released the scrubbed bracketed text of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas several months before seeking fast-track authority for that agreement. At the time, his U.S. Trade Representative said that releasing the text ``would increase public awareness and support for the trade deal.'' Guess what. Congress still approved that fast-track deal. Of course it can be done. It has been done, and it should be done.

Still others say that publicly releasing the text would endanger state secrets. Wow. But this agreement is not about nuclear weapons programs or military operations. There isn't any national security information in this deal. This deal is about things such as copyright rules and labor standards. And I know the President doesn't think there is any sensitive national security information in the deal. That is why he has already committed to publicly releasing the entire text. He just won't do it until after Congress has already voted to grease the skids to make it law.

That brings us to the last justification--that we should all be satisfied that the administration will release the text of the deal a few months before Congress has to vote on whether to approve it. But by then, Congress will have lost the ability to amend the deal, to stop the deal, or to slow it down. In other words, by the time you--the American public--can read the deal, your elected representatives will have lost the ability to use your input to help shape that deal. That sounds like a lousy arrangement to me.

So if there are no good reasons for secrecy here, that leaves only a bad reason, and believe it or not, it is a reason I have heard people give multiple times: We should keep the deal secret because if the details were made public now, the public would oppose it. Well, that is how our democracy is supposed to work.

If the TPP is mostly done and the public wouldn't support it if they could see it, then it shouldn't become the law. That is why I have introduced a simple bill with my friend from West Virginia, Senator Manchin. This bill would require the President to publicly release the scrubbed bracketed text of a trade deal at least 60 days before Congress votes on any fast-track for that deal. That would give the public, the experts, and the press an opportunity to review the deal. It would allow for some honest public debate. It would give Congress a chance to actually step in and block any special deals and giveaways that are being proposed as part of this trade deal before Congress decides whether to grease the skids to make that deal the law.

If this trade deal is so great, if it will work so well for America's workers and small businesses, then make it public. We should pass this bill today and give the American people some time to read the deal before we tie ourselves to fast-track.

Whether you support fast-track or oppose it, whether you support TPP or oppose it, we should all agree that we should have a robust, informed debate on something that is this important. Anything less is a disservice to the people who sent us here to work for them.

So I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 1381, that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration, the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I just want to say to the Senator from Utah how much I respect his leadership in this Senate and his leadership on so many important issues.

All I want to say about this is that we are just asking for the trade deal to be made public before we have this crucial vote about whether there will be any opportunity in the future to amend the trade deal, to slow down the trade deal or--as the Senator from West Virginia says--if we really find objectionable parts, to be able to block it. We are just asking for some transparency before we have this crucial vote on the TPA. We don't want to see fast-track until the American public can evaluate the deal. That is all we are asking for at this point.

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