Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. LINDA T. SÁNCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak against this misguided TPA bill. Many of my colleagues have highlighted the reasons to oppose the bill, but I want to focus on two specific fundamental issues, labor and civil rights.
There is nothing in this that requires countries to bring their labor laws and regulations into compliance before this deal takes effect. How can we have an agreement that doesn't require everybody to play by the same rules? That is just ridiculous.
We need trade agreements that prohibit signatory countries from murdering, jailing, torturing, or firing citizens for doing such outlandish things as trying to unionize and bargain for safer working conditions.
Enforceable labor provisions tell trading partners that we mean business on labor rights before letting their goods into the U.S. Trade agreements should not continue a race to the bottom for workers. We should be setting the standards.
I am frustrated that TPP negotiations are nearly complete and we are just now giving the administration their marching orders, but here we are, and those marching orders should be clear, especially on labor rights.
Additionally, in the Ways and Means markup for this legislation, I offered a commonsense amendment to address the issue of countries whose laws call for imprisonment, torture, and even death for the supposed crime of one's sexual orientation.
I was baffled to watch every single Republican member on the committee vote to say that it is perfectly acceptable to do business with countries that have these laws. Perhaps it was naive of me to think that we could at least have one bright-line rule for the most basic of human rights--not to be put to death based on a person's actual or perceived sexual orientation.
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Ms. LINDA T. SÁNCHEZ of California. U.S. market access shouldn't be a free pass. If you want to do business with the U.S., we shouldn't tolerate such barbaric behavior.
For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation.
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