������Ƶ

Civil Beat was among many parties last year arguing for “fast-track” negotiating authority for the Obama administration on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The reasoning was simple: The administration needed the authority to complete final work in a timely fashion on the highly complex draft agreement; without it, there would be no way to see and analyze exactly what was in the proposed deal.

The U.S. Senate granted the authority, negotiations were completed and the full TPP deal circulated. Now that lawmakers here and in member nations abroad have gone through the enormous document, a growing number are saying the TPP is bad news.

It’s a position with which we grudgingly agree.

There’s no doubt that the TPP stood to bring new trade opportunity to the United States. Representing 12 nations and 40 percent of the world economy, the deal is promoted by the White House as the path toward raising American exports to new heights. U.S. exports , totaling $2.34 trillion.

“The more we sell abroad, the more higher-paying jobs we support here at home,” the White House argues.

TPP would facilitate that, in part, by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes levied on American-made products by countries participating in the deal.

The Considerable Downside

So what’s not to like? For starters, to reach agreement among member countries, once-strong protective language around workers’ rights, the environment and public safety was downgraded as participating countries negotiated the final draft.

“Although attempts were made to address these issues, TPP does not create mandatory obligations,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz in a recent memo to constituents. “Instead, throughout the agreement, TPP uses watered down and unenforceable language in which the participating countries have promised to ‘promote,’ ‘encourage,’ ‘cooperate,’ ‘strive,’ and ‘endeavor’ to do various things.”

Discussing the matter in greater depth Thursday with the Civil Beat editorial board, Schatz echoed a sentiment raised by vocal TPP critics from to to Nobel laureate economist : TPP’s Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions give enormous power to multinational corporations at the expense of governments and the people they serve.

‘If international corporations are allowed to sue in essentially a private court made up of attorneys who work for international corporations to not overturn federal law but to undermine federal law — that was the deal breaker for me.’ — Sen. Brian Schatz

Here’s how the ISDS process would work. If a corporation felt it had been harmed by a governmental statute or policy that is in conflict with TPP, the corporation could sue to assess fines against the government. The independent arbitration panel that would hear those cases would be made up largely of attorneys who are not accountable in any meaningful way to the people of the countries represented in the agreement.

Once the arbitration panel rules, its decision would be final. There is no appeal process. And the verdicts could be huge. While they might not invalidate the government statute or policy in question, the awards could make it so painful that a government might repeal it on its own.

That’s exactly what is happening now in the Keystone Pipeline case. TransCanada is suing under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which includes an ISDS provision, over President Obama’s decision to cancel the company’s pipeline project, and is .

“I think that turns governance and sovereignty on its head,” said Schatz. “If international corporations are allowed to sue in essentially a private court made up of attorneys who work for international corporations to not overturn federal law but to undermine federal law— that was the deal breaker for me.”

Schatz is hardly alone in his opposition. Every remaining presidential candidate in the 2016 race now opposes TPP. Though fast-track authority to negotiate TPP was made possible through rare bi-partisan support, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now says the prior to the elections this fall are all but nonexistent.

McConnell rightly points out that the authority to negotiate the deal was granted for six years, meaning that a subsequent president could take up the deal and attempt to modify problem areas. That would be incredibly difficult, however, given the complexities of negotiating a 12-nation pact of this scope and size.

More likely, according to Schatz and others on Capitol Hill, is an effort to pass TPP during the lame-duck period between the November elections and mid January of next year. If that happens, there will be no opportunity to amend the bill: Fast-track authority carried with it the requirement that the bill be passed or defeated as is, no amendments allowed.

As we pointed out last year, that was always a high-stakes gambit, one that required an “extraordinarily high level of scrutiny” for whatever turned out to be inside the secretly negotiated TPP deal.

We’ve seen what’s inside now, and it is disappointingly lacking. Whether it does so this summer or during a lame-duck session in the winter, the Senate should send U.S. negotiators back to the drawing table to strengthen important protections and delete ISDS provisions within a historic agreement that could still hold great promise for America.

Until the downside doesn’t overshadow that considerable promise, TPP shouldn’t advance a step further.