WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement announced on Monday threatens American families and the environment in the United States, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.
"Despite widespread, international opposition, the United States government is moving toward signing a trade deal that threatens our families, our communities, and our environment," Brune stated on Monday.
The TPP deal includes the United States and Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Taiwan, Peru, Brunei, Chile, Singapore and Malaysia, and covers about 40 percent of the global economy.
"Amazingly, the public is still not able to see the contents of a completed pact that has been negotiated entirely behind closed doors. But, we know enough about the pact to understand that, if passed, it would undermine decades of environmental progress and threaten our climate," Brune noted.
The agreement, he added, would expand trade in dangerous fossil fuels that would increase fracking and imperil US environmental standards.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership would empower big polluters to challenge climate and environmental safeguards in private trade courts," Brune added.
He also expressed skepticism that the TPP’s rules on conservation challenges, such as the illegal timber or wildlife trade, would never be enforced.
"Congress must stand up for American jobs, clean air and water, and a healthy climate and environment by rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership," Brune concluded.
The Sierra Club is the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States with more than two million members and supporters, according to the organization’s web site.
