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Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has written his second letter in as many months to President Obama strongly expressing his concerns about Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) which, if passed, would force Congress to cede several of its constitutional powers.
Last month, Sessions wrote a letter to Obama about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement between the United States and 11 other South American and Pacific Nations. He noted the Senate ceded “the power to write legislation, the power to amend legislation, the power to fully consider legislation on the floor, the power to keep debate open until Senate cloture is invoked, and the constitutional requirement that treaties receive a two-thirds vote.”
He also posed several questions to the president on topics ranging from the “living agreement” (an establishment of a global governance between the vested nations); how jobs and our trade deficit will be affected; if China can be admitted to the partnership without congressional approval; and if the number of foreign workers admitted into the U.S. will be altered as a result of TPP.
In his most recent letter to the president, Sessions pointed out that the text of the legislation was secret, kept in a closed room, and “more closely resembles a treaty than a trade deal. In other words, through fast-track, Congress would be pre-clearing a political and economic union before a word of that arrangement has been made available to a single private citizen.”
Sessions also noted he received no response to the questions he asked in his first letter:
Among those, I asked that you make public the section of the TPP that creates a new transnational governance structure known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission. The details of this new governance commission are extremely broad and have the hallmarks of a nascent European Union, with many similarities.
The Alabama senator continued by noting the secret text of the legislation “reveals that this new transnational commission—chartered with a ‘Living Agreement’ clause—would have the authority to amend the agreement after its adoption, to add new members, and to issue regulations impacting labor, immigration, environmental, and commercial policy. Under this new commission, the Sultan of Brunei would have an equal vote to that of the United States.”
Sessions concluded:
I would therefore ask that you provide to me the legal and constitutional basis for keeping this information from the public and explain why I cannot share the details of what I have read with the American people.
Congress should not even consider fast-tracking the transfer of sovereign power to a transnational structure before the details of that new structure are made fully available for public review.
TPA passed 62 to 38 in the Senate last month and is currently pending in the House with a possible vote next week. The Republican leadership is having difficulty finding votes for a majority.
h/t: Breitbart
Do you think TPA goes too far? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth