[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 155 (Tuesday, December 16, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1849]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             TRANSATLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. STEVE STOCKMAN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 16, 2014

  Mr. STOCKMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit today important 
information regarding the proposed trade deal between the United States 
and the European Union. The following article was written for Roll Call 
by my Legislative Assistant Zachary Leshin. During his time as my 
Legislative Assistant, Mr. Leshin has conveyed a profound understanding 
of the issue at hand, and has been an important asset to my office.

                    [From Roll Call, Oct. 22, 2014]

                          (By Zachary Leshin)

              Should Congress Reconsider TTIP?--Commentary

       Recently there has been discussion over whether the United 
     States should enter into a free trade agreement with the 
     European Union known as the Transatlantic Trade and 
     Investment Partnership. There are several major issues with 
     TTIP that make it not in the interest of the United States to 
     enter into the agreement.
       One major issue is non-tariff barriers to free trade that 
     are not addressed by TTIP. In the European Union there are 
     certain classes of product known as Protected Designation of 
     Origin and Protected Geographical Indication. One example of 
     a PDO is Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, which legally can be 
     made only in a certain region of northern Italy. Currently, 
     American dairy farmers are not allowed to sell Parmesan 
     cheese in the European Union because the name sounds too 
     similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano. In all of the European 
     Union's trade agreements, PDO and PGI protection has been 
     extended to include the products in the other countries who 
     are party to such agreement and the European Union has stated 
     its intent to include that in TTIP under the guise of 
     ``intellectual property rights.''
       There are many examples of how arbitrary and nonsensical 
     the designation process is. Newcastle Ale had to request that 
     its PDO status be revoked so it could move its factory just 
     across a river. Stilton cheese is not allowed to be made in 
     the English village of Stilton from which it derives its 
     name, but only in three neighboring villages. Feta cheese is 
     allowed to be produced only in Greece, but not in Cyprus or 
     other areas where ethnic Greeks may be living.
       Another major issue with TTIP is that automatically having 
     a free trade agreement with the United States would provide a 
     major incentive for more countries to join the European 
     Union. The European Union has increasingly become more of a 
     centralized government over its member states, especially 
     since the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. In some 
     areas (such as rules regarding the standardization of driving 
     licenses) the European Union government has more control over 
     its member states than the United States federal government 
     has over US states.
       Encouraging further expansion of the European Union is bad 
     for the people of Europe, as the European Union has been 
     eroding the sovereignty of its member states. The European 
     Union has been imposing many absurd and burdensome 
     regulations. One regulation requires all projects that 
     receive funding from the European Regional Development Fund 
     to fly the flag of the European Union. Another regulation 
     states that prepackaged products are allowed to be sold only 
     in certain sized packages, and packages that deviate from the 
     proscribed size dimensions are prohibited from sale.
       What also needs to be considered is not only what these 
     regulations are, but how they are established. In the United 
     States, the heads of the federal executive agencies, which 
     are responsible for establishing regulatory policies, are 
     nominated by an elected president and confirmed by elected 
     senators. The European Union has no such accountability 
     mechanism.
       Another issue that needs to be considered is discriminatory 
     trade policies imposed by the European Union. In May 2014, 
     the European Union put in place a ban on the import of 
     poultry and eggs raised by Jews in Judea and Samaria, but 
     still permits import of poultry and eggs raised by Arabs in 
     that same region. The European Union has also been 
     considering implementation of discriminatory meat labeling 
     policies where meat products slaughtered using religious 
     methods are required to label the method, but meat products 
     slaughtered using other methods are not.
       Supporting TTIP may impact the proposed referendum on 
     United Kingdom membership of the European Union that is 
     planned for 2015, skewing the outcome in favor of maintaining 
     membership in the European Union. Instead, the United States 
     should seek to establish a free trade agreement with a free 
     and independent Britain. This will encourage other European 
     Union member states to leave the European Union as well and 
     will hopefully serve as a catalyst for the dissolution of the 
     European Union. It is not in the strategic interests of the 
     United States, nor in the interests of the people of Europe, 
     for the European Union to become a more centralized 
     institution.

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