Referred to: The Economic Development, Tourism, Housing, Planning and Transit

Committee (Chairman Maloney and Legislators Berky, Delaune, Lapp, Litts, Maio

and Rodriguez)

 

Legislators Manna Jo Greene and Tracey Bartels, and Legislator Rodriquez offer the

following:

WHEREAS, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement that has

been negotiated among the United States and 12 or more Pacific Rim countries,

without consultation with our elected officials, but in consultation with many

transnational corporations that will benefit from its rules; and

 

 WHEREAS, U.S. trade deals for the past 25 years have been corporatedriven, incorporating rules that skew benefits to economic elites, resulting in working

families bearing the brunt of such policies; and

 

WHEREAS, the growing trade deficits, driven by the North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA), China's accession to the World Trade Organization, and

the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, have displaced 700,000 jobs and 3.2 million

jobs, and 75,000 jobs respectively; and

WHEREAS, U.S. employment in manufacturing dropped by 5 million from

2000 to 2015; and

WHEREAS, jobs lost due to trade devastate families and entire communities

and can permanently reduce lifetime earnings for hundreds of thousands of workers;

and

WHEREAS, the long decline of the American manufacturing base

exacerbated by bad trade policies that reward outsourcing has undermined our

economic security and poses a direct threat to our national security; and

WHEREAS, the proposed TPP free trade agreement would compromise the

high standards of environmental protection incorporated in US federal, state and local

laws by allowing unrestricted trade with partners who are not required to achieve this

same level of protection; and

WHEREAS, the offshoring of manufacturing increases global air and sea

transport thereby adding to the carbon footprint of imported goods and increasing

greenhouse gas emissions, leading to further global warming and extreme weather,

and

 

 

WHEREAS, the disproportionate voice of powerful United States and

multinational global corporations in the formation of U.S. “free trade” agreements

has advanced an agenda that undermines human rights, environmental protection, the

public interest and threatens democracy at all levels of government; and

 

WHEREAS, under NAFTA-style trade rules, the U.S. annual trade deficit has

increased dramatically from 70 billion in 1993, the year before NAFTA went into

effect, to more than $508 billion in 2014; and

WHEREAS, the TPP Free Trade Agreement is likely to include provisions

lacking in monopoly protections for expensive specialty drugs called biologics and

constrict the government's ability to limit spending on drugs, potentially increasing

drug costs for the government and all Americans; and

 

WHEREAS, given the enactment of fast track trade negotiating authority,

states, localities, and their citizens have no opportunity to correct shortcomings of the

TPP text and Congress cannot follow normal Congressional procedure that permits

full hearings and amendments but can only vote the agreement as presented up or

down; and

WHEREAS, the TPP has been negotiated without appropriate input,

effectively shutting state and local governments out of the process, limiting our

ability to influence its rules to ensure that the people of Ulster County can participate

in the benefits of trade; and

WHEREAS, promoting economic growth with equity in Ulster County

requires an approach that reforms the entire trade negotiation process to ensure that

voices of workers, farmers, small businesses, families and communities are heard and

their interests addressed; and

 WHEREAS, the TPP would have direct, potentially undesirable

consequences for our county, its residents, its local businesses, and its ecological

systems on which all life depends; now, therefore be it

 

 RESOLVED, the Ulster County Legislature calls upon our federal elected

officials, Senator Charles Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman

Chris Gibson, to oppose the TPP and any similar trade deals if they fail to represent

the needs and requirements of local and state municipalities, American public health

interest, and U.S. agricultural industries; and, be it further 

 

RESOLVED, the Ulster County Legislature calls upon our elected officials in

the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives to support new trade agreements

only if they will:

• Protect and promote traditional state and local prerogatives and authority

under our federal system;

• Ensure balanced trade and address the escalating U.S. trade deficit;

• Exclude investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) and other provisions that

favor foreign companies over domestic ones and undermine public choices;

• Protect the U.S. agricultural industry;

• Ensure that countries cannot undercut U.S. based producers with weaker labor

and environmental laws and enforcement;

• Ensure that the U.S. will engage in robust enforcement of trade rules,

including labor and environmental rules;

• Include strong rules to promote economic growth and job creation in the U.S.;

• Promote high standards of protection for workers and workplaces, products,

and natural resources rather than promoting a race to the bottom; and

• Put the interests of people and the planet in the forefront of other issues; and

be it further

 

RESOLVED, the Clerk of Legislature shall send copies of this resolution to

our elected officials in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, President

Barack H. Obama, Hon. Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the New York State

Association of Counties (NYSAC),

and move its adoption.

ADOPTED BY THE FOLLOWING VOTE:

AYES: 18 NOES: 2

(Noes: Legislators Briggs and J. Parete)

(Absent: Legislators Delaune, Gerentine, and

Maloney) 

 

Postponed in Committee: Economic Development, Tourism, Housing, Planning and

Transit on October 3, 2016

Passed Committee: Economic Development, Tourism, Housing, Planning and Transit

on October 13, 2016

FINANCIAL IMPACT:

NONE

STATE OF NEW YORK

 ss:

COUNTY OF ULSTER

I, the undersigned Clerk of the Legislature of the County of Ulster, hereby certify that the foregoing resolution is

the original resolution adopted by the Ulster County Legislature on the 18th Day of October in the year Two Thousand and

Sixteen, and said resolution shall remain on file in the office of said clerk.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and seal of the County of Ulster this 19th Day of October

in the year Two Thousand and Sixteen.

|s| Victoria A. Fabella

Victoria A. Fabella, Clerk

Ulster County Legislature