[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 8475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                AMERICA'S HEALTH MEASURES PROTECTION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JIM McDERMOTT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 9, 2016

  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation to 
protect the health regulations of the United States, and thereby the 
health of Americans, from the pernicious use of the Investor-State 
Dispute Settlement mechanism that exists in free trade agreements like 
NAFTA and the TPP.
  Abuses of the ISDS provision have already had harmful effects on the 
health of our Canadian neighbors, as an ISDS lawsuit essentially forced 
the Canadian government to abandon its ban of the gasoline additive 
MMT, a known human neurotoxin.
  My legislation, which amends the Bipartisan Congressional Trade 
Priorities and Accountable Act of 2015, known as the TPA, makes it 
explicitly clear that protecting the health of Americans is a paramount 
trade negotiating objective of the United States. As it stands today, 
the TPA falls short of this goal.
  During negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership, several nations 
demanded the ability to dismiss ISDS claims made against their tobacco 
control measures. This insistence was a tacit acknowledgment that 
companies use ISDS lawsuits to challenge reasonable state health 
regulations.
  But why only single out tobacco control measures? What about 
safeguards for other public health measures like lower drug prices 
under Medicare, food safety regulations, clean air and water 
regulations, or the Toxic Substances Control Act recently passed by 
Congress? The fact that a last minute ``tobacco carve-out'' was 
inserted into the TPP is proof that the trade negotiating objectives 
currently in TPA are not explicit enough to protect the health of 
Americans.
  The purpose of my legislation is to ensure that all health 
regulations in the United States are protected from unscrupulous abuses 
of trade arbitration mechanisms that fall outside of the United States 
justice system. My legislation instructs the United States Trade 
Representative to explicitly ensure that no trade agreement gives an 
investor group the power to hold the health of Americans hostage for 
monetary gain.
  Trade is important to our society, but it should not come at the 
expense of the health of Americans. I urge my colleagues to support 
this legislation.

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