[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10997-10998]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, last month Congress dealt with a trade 
package that centered on trade promotion authority; and those actions, 
while important, were really just the beginning of a very long process.
  Many important provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, 
are still unresolved. There is a meeting at the end of this month in 
Hawaii where the finance ministers of 12 countries come together in an 
attempt to resolve these final questions.
  As I pointed out in my last meeting with the President, while I think 
trade promotion authority is important and worthy of support, that 
support does not imply support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
  Indeed, because of the protections we built into the trade promotion 
authority, it sets an appropriately high standard for approval. 
Everybody in America will have several months to examine the proposal 
if an agreement is reached to see if it measures up before the treaty 
can even be voted on by Congress.
  I am hopeful that we can use this time to clarify and refine areas, 
for example, the investor state dispute process. While the United 
States' investor state protections for public health and consumers are 
stronger than for most countries and are separate from the foreign 
investor state models that are being used by the United States Chamber 
of Commerce to promote the interests of Big Tobacco to undercut efforts

[[Page 10998]]

to discourage smoking, there is still room for us to improve and 
clarify the American model, and we should do so.
  Another important area deals with trade enforcement. Agreements that 
look good on paper, if they are not enforceable or enforced, are 
essentially meaningless. It is extremely important for the 
administration to demonstrate its commitment to enforcement.
  We are trying to help with legislation that I have introduced in the 
House that we have been able to get in part of the Senate package that 
would create a trade enforcement fund dedicated to help make sure 
agreements are enforced.
  Another step the administration could take immediately is to deal 
with disturbing actions in Peru that seem to undercut commitments that 
were made in the existing Peru free trade agreement dealing with 
illegal logging. It appears that Peru has backtracked on its 
commitments and that illegally harvested timber is finding its way into 
international markets and, indeed, into the United States. It would be 
a simple act for the administration to take that would demonstrate its 
commitment to strong enforcement by starting with Peru right now.
  Another area that I am working on deals with access to medicines. It 
appears that the TPP draft falls short on incentives for affordability 
and consumer protections and the trade promotion authority objective to 
``ensure that trade agreements foster innovation and promote access to 
medicines.'' We need some work here.
  The May 10 agreement that was struck in 2007, which I was pleased to 
participate in, struck the right balance, creating incentives for 
innovation in pharmaceutical research and access to timely and 
affordable medicine for developing countries. This was achieved in part 
by requiring changes to provisions dealing with patent linkage where it 
looks like TPP is moving in the wrong direction.
  The TPP includes new provisions which, while not addressed in the May 
10 agreement, are inconsistent with its spirit and its intent of 
ensuring timely access to affordable medicines in developing countries. 
For example, with biologic medicines, it appears the United States is 
seeking both patent linkage and 12 years of data exclusivity for all 
countries. The former would require a change in U.S. law, and the 
latter would prevent America from changing our laws to lower the 
exclusivity period, as has been proposed in the President's own budget 
proposal. The combination of these two would have enormous cost 
implications both at home and abroad.
  These are examples where I am working to make sure the final 
agreement measures up to the criteria we have established in the trade 
promotion authority.
  I urge the administration and my colleagues to be clear about our 
intent and our expectations in order for any final agreement to be 
worthy of broad support.

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