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Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership

Posted by samzenpus on from the fox-in-the-henhouse dept.

An anonymous reader writes: This Techdirt story shows how industry lobbyists influenced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, to the point that one even openly celebrates that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) version copied his own text word for word. The email exchange between Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official reads: "Hi Barbara – John sent through a link to the P4 agreement. I have taken a quick look at the rules of origin. Someone owes USTR a royalty payment – these are our rules. They will need some tweaking but will likely not need major surgery. This is a very pleasant surprise. I will study more closely over the weekend."

2 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Re: But this is a new low... by kenh · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I think it's common knowledge by now that industry can buy legislation. The new low is that the actual text of the bill is being kept under lock and key.

    It's the natural evolution of Democratic legislation - remember how the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was passed? While the 2,500 page text was available, supporters and even the sponsors of the bill openly mocked anyone that tried to get politicians to actually READ the bill. Once they made it 'cool' to ignore the actual text of a bill, the next step was to see if they could get away with not even bothering to release the text of the bill.

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    Ken
  2. Re: Of course they did. by kenh · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Remind me, who wrote the PPACA (Obamacare)? We know it wasn't the sponsors of the bill, since they admitted openly to having never even having read the bill...

    And what did the PPACA implement? A requirement for tens of millions of Americans to buy health insurance from private insurance companies, in many cases subsidized with government (taxpayer) money, and any losses insurance companies incur will be reimbursed by government with taxpayer money... Only a fool (or a Democrat supporter on a Kool-Aid IV drip) could believe that legislation was drafted by anyone other than the insurance industry.

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    Ken