Tag Archives: Trans-Pacific Partnership

TPP Environment chapter released by Wikileaks

No penalties and no proposed criminal sanctions in TPP for environmental destruction,
in sharp contrast to

the U.S. proposal for new criminal penalties for
“unintentional infringements” intellectual property.


Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – Environment Consolidated Text



Today, 15 January 2014, WikiLeaks released the secret draft text for
the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Environment Chapter and
the corresponding Chairs’ Report. The TPP transnational legal regime
would cover 12 countries initially and encompass 40 per cent of
global GDP and one-third of world trade. The Environment Chapter has
long been sought by journalists and environmental groups. The
released text dates from the Chief Negotiators’ summit in Salt Lake
City, Utah, on 19-24 November 2013.

The Environment Chapter covers what the Parties propose to be their
positions on: environmental issues, including climate change,
biodiversity and fishing stocks; and trade and investment in
‘environmental’ goods and services. It also outlines Continue reading →

Deep divisions between U.S. and Asian nations in TPP –Wikileaks

Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S.
because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines
feeding liquid natural gas exports?
Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people
for unintentional infringement of copyright?
Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law?
Then you oppose the TPP.

After the November
release of
the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter,
in December Wikileaks released
two documents from the secret
closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have
already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed.


These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of
“mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products
or environment or labor to all the reasons

EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty
and the

LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked
“natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit
of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.

The deep divisions among the negotiating countries
exposed Continue reading →

Utilities can’t take the solar heat



Utilities are trying increasingly desperate tactics in their
losing battle against distributed rooftop solar power.
It’s time for them to get out in front and lead instead.

Clare Foran wrote for NationalJournal

Are Utilities Wilting From Heat of Solar Competition?

Regulatory battles over solar power payment models played out in
several states this year. And as the dust settles, solar providers
are claiming victory. Utilities, on the other hand, are trying to
reframe the conversation entirely by insisting they aren’t an enemy
of solar.

After discussing utlities’ attempts to bash net metering, she notes
the

Sierra Club

hard-won
victory over the

ALEC solar tax:

In November, Georgia Power

backed down Continue reading →

Ask your Congress members to oppose TPP today

Here’s

a handy form by EFF
to oppose the secretly-negotiated privacy-deleting corporate-greed-defending
natural gas export pipeline-enabling Trans-Pacific Parternship treaty.

Parker Higgins and Maira Sutton
wrote for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
28 December 2013,

2013 in Review: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,


Stop Secret Copyright Treaties

The biggest TPP story this year was the publication by WikiLeaks
in November of the chapter titled “Intellectual Property.” Unfortunately,
its contents confirmed many of our worst fears: from
ratcheting up copyright term lengths
around the world, to
boxing in fair use, to mandating a draconian legal regime around DRM software, section
after section contained clauses plucked from corporate wishlists and
snubbed the public interest altogether.

And then there’s

Ted Poe’s House Subcommittee pushing TPP for LNG exports that would propel
“natural” fracked gas pipelines
such as Spectra Energy’s Sabal Transmission gas pipe
through private property and

public rivers and watersheds and

aquifers.

Here’s what’s up next: Continue reading →