A deal on Fast Track was reached last Thursday, and it’s a doozy. The agreement was reached between Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WA), the Chairs and Ranking Members of Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committee. The bills will go up for committee votes soon, as early as this week.
Although the bill does contain some nice language we've won together with the late Senator Ted Kennedy on respecting the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health, it also includes dreadful “TRIPS-plus” policies, including a requirement that US trade negotiators actively work for "accelerated and full implementation” of the TRIPS agreement, as well as even nastier language that makes it a legal negotiating objective of the United States to push other countries to adopt "a standard of [intellectual property] protection similar to that found in United States law” — what a nightmare!
These objectives—even before the TPP is finalized—threaten millions of people with HIV. Some Senators are already talking about trying to amend the bill, and we need to pull out all the stops to halt this bill and make any progress as slow and painful as possible. This flawed Fast Track legislation would allow the TPP and other agreements to skirt ordinary Congressional review, amendment and debate procedures — a rubber-stamping of “NAFTA on Steroids” pacts that denies affordable generic medicines, destroys jobs and drives down wages, and causes dangerous environmental, public health and economic setbacks for people here and abroad.
We’ve stopped Fast Track legislation before and we can do so again. We need you to call Congress now!
ACTION NEEDED!
1. Call your member of Congress TODAY
2. Stay tuned for electronic actions in the coming days.
We need you to call Congress now. Its critical that we all make emergency phone calls to your members of congress TODAY. This link will Call congress and give you a calling script to borrow from while you're speaking with your elected officials.
It’s crucial that we continue sending a strong message over the next few days through emails to show that Fast Track is Dead on Arrival. After you've made calls today and tomorrow, this link will send an automatic email to your Senators.
PS for more info: Committee on Ways & Means Ranking Member Sander M. Levin released a very solid blow-by-blow run down on why fast track is horrible and must be stopped.
With your help we can defend access to AIDS drugs from this horrible Fast Track deal.