October, 01 2012, 03:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org
US Green Party Signs International Green Statement Against 'Secret' Trans-Pacific Partnership Pact
Green Party of the United States signs on to international Green statement against Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, calling secretly negotiated pact a threat to US jobs and the environment
WASHINGTON
The Green Party of the United States has joined Green Parties of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand in a "Joint Statement on Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement" that strongly criticizes the proposed international trade pact.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), which has been called "NAFTA on steroids," would override democratically enacted laws that have been passed at national and local levels to protect the environment, public health, labor rights, and Internet freedom.
The text of the Joint Statement, which the Green Party of the United States has endorsed, is appended below.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was negotiated in secret by the Obama Administration, is meant to privilege corporate profits and enhance corporate power in the nations that rim the Pacific, including the U.S. This pact is a threat to jobs in the U.S. It contradicts claims by both President Obama and Gov. Romney that they want to put Americans back to work," said Cheri Honkala, the Green Party's vice-presidential nominee (https://www.jillstein.org).
"Every voter should know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Unfortunately, both Obama and Romney support it, which means it won't be discussed in the presidential debates. Only Green candidates, including my running mate, Jill Stein, are talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership publicly. This is why it's so crucial that Dr. Stein participate in the debates," added Ms. Honkala.
Joint Statement on Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
https://www.greenparty.ca/statement/2012-08-21/joint-statement-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement
21 August 2012 - 4:01pm
As the Green parliamentary political parties of three nations whose governments are currently in the process of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), we are issuing this joint statement to express our serious concern at the fundamentally undemocratic and non-transparent nature of this agreement. Following the leaking of the draft investment chapter of the TPPA the Greens are extremely concerned that the agreement has the potential to undermine the ability of our governments to perform effectively. More than just another trade agreement, the TPPA provisions could hinder access to safe, affordable medicines, weaken local content rules for media, stifle high-tech innovation, and even restrict the ability of future governments to legislate for the good of public health and the environment.
We believe that the process should be transparent. This agreement has been negotiated behind closed doors with a level of secrecy that is completely unacceptable in a democratic society.
The Right to Set Our Own Laws
The governments of Australia, Canada and New Zealand traditionally have the right to set down their own laws for the good of public health, consumers, workers and the environment.
Leaked details of the TPPA reveal that, foreign investors and firms could sue Canada or New Zealand in a private international tribunal if their parliaments or local councils pass laws that reduce their profits or adversely affect their businesses. This could include laws such as:
- a requirement for large graphic warnings or plain packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products (such as in Canada and Australia, and forthcoming in NZ);
- laws requiring labeling of genetically-modified food and drink (NZ); and
- retention of agricultural regulations such as Canada's supply management system for dairy, which aims to preserve farmers' livelihoods.
The Australian government has indicated it will not agree to these clauses intended to protect multinational businesses from the impact of policy decisions, but New Zealand and Canada's leaders refuse to do the same (even after Canada was on the receiving end of costly lawsuits under NAFTA).
The End of a Free Internet
We believe the TPPA is being used to sneak in measures to bind its member countries to extensive and harsh laws on Internet use that wouldn't be acceptable at the domestic level -- including harsher criminal penalties for minor, non-commercial copyright infringements, a 'take-down and ask questions later' approach to pages and content alleged to breach copyright, and the possibility of Internet providers having to disclose personal information to authorities without safeguards for privacy. The European Parliament voted 478-39 against the international ACTA treaty, which was trying to create similar standards. Now, the same type of regulation is being attempted under the TPPA.
More IP Rights for the Big Players
The Intellectual Property Rights chapter of the TPPA was leaked in draft form in February 2011. We anticipate that unless a more moderate and balanced version is adopted, NZ, Canada and Australia's shoppers, schools and libraries would end up paying more for their books and DVD's because it would let copyright holders veto parallel importing. Small and medium-sized software and IT businesses would have their innovative visions stifled by constraining patent laws. Finally, large pharmaceutical companies could use the legislation to deny state drug-buying agencies like those in Australia and NZ access to reliable, low cost medicines.
Behind Closed Doors
Almost everything we have learnt about the TPPA's contents comes from leaked documents that the negotiators didn't want the public to see. No agreement this important should be finalised without the informed input of the ordinary people it will affect.
Yet while representatives of AT&T, Verizon, Cisco, major pharmaceutical companies and the Motion Picture Association of America have access to the text, democratically elected members of parliament, advocacy organisations for healthcare and the environment and ordinary citizens are being left out in the cold.
Governments, including the US, have opened up to the public in the past by releasing the draft text of agreements. In 2001, all nine chapters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement were released. At the time, this was called an 'important step' that would make the trade negotiation process 'more transparent and accessible'. If this was the standard for public accountability in 2001, it is disconcerting that similar standards are not in play in 2012.
Together, we Green Parties are declaring that we will only support a fair, genuinely progressive trade agreement that promotes sustainable development and the creation of new jobs alongside the protection of the environment and human rights (including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining). We call on our current governments to remove the veil of secrecy surrounding this agreement and to open these negotiations to public input and comment.
The Green Party of the United States is a grassroots national party. We're the party for "We The People," the health of our planet, and future generations instead of the One Percent.
(202) 319-7191LATEST NEWS
From Soaring Energy Prices to Climate Threat to AI Bubble, Experts Warn Against Data Center Buildout
“Tech giants are cutting backroom deals with utilities and government officials to build massive data centers at breakneck speed, while passing the costs onto working families," said the author of a new Public Citizen report.
Dec 04, 2025
As the construction of artificial intelligence data centers expands across the nation largely unregulated, experts warn that the unrestrained buildup of these facilities is causing electricity costs to skyrocket, accelerating the climate crisis, and putting the economy at risk.
A new report out Thursday from the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen highlights the "unchecked expansion" of these data centers, often with little oversight, input from communities, or even financial responsibility on the part of the Big Tech firms profiting.
“We’re watching Big Tech overlords write their own rules in real time,” said Deanna Noël, Public Citizen's climate campaigns director and one of the report's authors. “Tech giants are cutting backroom deals with utilities and government officials to build massive data centers at breakneck speed, while passing the costs onto working families through higher electricity bills, polluted air and water, and false claims about job creation."
A forecast published earlier this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance projected that the power demand for AI facilities will hit 106 gigawatts by 2035—a 36% jump from what it predicted back in April.
That dramatic increase, it said, can be attributed not just to the more rapid buildup of AI facilities, but also to the size of the ones being constructed: "Of the nearly 150 new data center projects BNEF added to its tracker in the last year, nearly a quarter exceed 500 megawatts," it found.
This faster-than-expected expansion has come with massive consequences for the people living near the power-sucking behemoths. Public Citizen's report found:
Residents’ electricity costs in some data center-dense areas have surged over 250% in just five years. At PJM—the world’s largest power market—capacity auction prices spiked 800% in 2024, in part due to data center growth. That same year, consumers across seven PJM states paid $4.3 billion more in electricity costs to cover data centers’ new transmission infrastructure.
On Wednesday, CNBC reported on findings from a watchdog report that PJM's 65 million consumers will pay a total of $16.6 billion to secure future power supplies needed to meet demand from AI data centers from now until 2027, approximately $255 per person on average.
In some of the states with the most data centers, residential electricity prices have spiked considerably over the past year. In September, they were up 20% in Illinois, 12% in Ohio, and 9% in Virginia, according to data from the federal Energy Information Administration.
The massive surge in electricity usage is also fueling the climate crisis. As of March 2025, 56% of the electricity used to power data centers came from fossil fuels, a share that is likely to increase now that the Trump administration has pushed to expand the extraction of coal and other planet-heating energy sources in order to power them.
"At the very moment we must rapidly phase out fossil fuels," Noël said, "the Trump administration is doing the opposite—fast-tracking data center development powered by coal, oil, and gas."
Tech companies like Amazon, Meta, and Google that benefit from these projects rarely have to bear the full economic cost, instead passing some of it onto taxpayers, often without public debate due to nondisclosure agreements that keep the details of proposals under wraps until deals are finalized.
"In the race to attract large data centers, states are forfeiting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue," a June CNBC investigation found. The report determined that 42 states provide full or partial sales tax exemptions to data centers or have no sales tax at all. Thirty-seven of those states have legislation specifically granting sales tax exemptions for data centers.
While these exemptions are often granted following promises of economic growth and job creation, as the Public Citizen report argues: "They rarely deliver on these promises. Data centers create few permanent, high-paying jobs, and generous tax breaks deprive communities of critical revenue needed to fund schools, infrastructure, and other public services."
Data centers have increasingly faced pushback from local communities. On Wednesday night in Howell, Michigan, over 150 people assembled at a town hall in opposition to a proposed $1 billion "hyperscale" data center project backed by Meta, following days of protest.
“Already we have started to see many regions (across the country) realizing that the huge spike in electricity demand from data centers is straining the grid, and this is only going to get worse as the growth of data centers increases based on the projected and planned investments,” said one of the panelists, Ben Green, an assistant professor of information and public policy at the University of Michigan.
Economic analysts, meanwhile, remain skeptical about whether the rapid buildup of AI infrastructure will be sustainable in the long term, given the extraordinary energy demand.
In November, Morgan Stanley projected AI-related data center spending will total $2.9 trillion cumulatively from 2025 to 2028, with roughly half requiring external financing.
Abe Silverman, general counsel for the public utility board in New Jersey, pointed out to CNBC the unease communities are feeling about "paying money today for a data center tomorrow."
“We’re in a bit of a bubble,” he warned. “There is no question that data center developers are coming out of the woodwork, putting in massive numbers of new requests. It’s impossible to say exactly how many of them are speculative versus real.”
Cathy Kunkel, a consultant at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, said, "It does tend to be consumers—residential, commercial, and other industrial ratepayers—that end up paying for overbuilt electrical infrastructure."
The health of the entire US economy, it turns out, may be hitched to this "bubble." As the Wall Street Journal reported in late November, "business investment in AI might have accounted for as much as half of the growth in gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, in the first six months of the year."
OpenAI founder Sam Altman raised eyebrows last month when he suggested that if the bubble bursts, his company is too big to fail, and would likely receive a large taxpayer-funded federal bailout: "When something gets sufficiently huge... the federal government is kind of the insurer of last resort as we've seen in various financial crises," Altman said. "So I guess given the magnitude of what I expect AI economic impact to look like, sort of I do think the government ends up as like the insurer of last resort."
A looming financial bubble related to AI's rapid growth, alongside the various other concerns related to the data center buildout, is why Public Citizen says policymakers must understand the gravity the situation and be willing to push back against an industry that has built an army of lobbyists to press its interests on Capitol Hill.
"Policymakers at all levels of government must act with urgency to rein in Big Tech’s unchecked expansion," Noël said. "By demanding transparency and accountability, enforcing strong community protections, and requiring clean and cheap renewable energy, policymakers can shield consumers from soaring electricity costs, reduce emissions to protect public health, and align this buildout with the clean energy transition.
"Without urgent intervention," she said, "Big Tech will continue getting a free ride while more neighborhoods are turned into sacrifice zones for Silicon Valley’s tech tycoons—fueled by the fossil fuel industry.”
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'Where Is Yuanxin?' 6-Year-Old Missing in DHS Custody After ICE Separated Him From Father at Check-In
"Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria," said Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. "Now he's in custody, alone. ICE won't say where. This cruelty serves no one."
Dec 04, 2025
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on Thursday said the Trump administration continues to tell the "cruel lie" that it does not separate children from their families in immigration enforcement, as he joined other city officials and advocates in demanding the Department of Homeland Security immediately release a six-year-old boy who was taken from his father during an immigration check-in in Manhattan more than a week ago.
"Six-year-old asylum-seeker Yuanxin has been separated from his father, held at an undisclosed location," said Williams.
As The City reported Tuesday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Yuanxin's father, Fei, when they arrived at 26 Federal Plaza—the ICE headquarters and immigration court that's become notorious for federal agents' violent treatment of immigrants and advocates under President Donald Trump—on November 26.
Fei, who sought asylum when he and his son crossed the US border in April, was sent to Orange County Jail in New York, while his son, a public school student in Queens, was separated from him. ICE agents did not tell Fei where they were taking Yuanxin.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said in a statement this week that while agents were attempting to take Fei north to Orange County, he "was acting so disruptive and aggressive that he endangered the child’s well-being." She accused him of attempting to "escape and abandon his son."
While acknowledging that the two had been separated, McLaughlin said, "ICE does not separate families.”
A judge "administratively closed" the family's asylum case in September, The City reported, which "would have been seen as a positive step and indicated that DHS wasn’t actively seeking the person’s deportation" under previous administrations.
They were also released on a yearlong parole after having been previously detained, and were required to visit 26 Federal Plaza for check-ins with ICE.
According to the Deportation Data Project, at least 151 children under the age of 18 have been arrested and detained by ICE since January.
Diana Moreno, an immigrant rights advocate who is running for the state Assembly in District 36, spoke to CBS News on Tuesday about Yuanxin's detention.
"To see their classmates disappear overnight is something that no parent wants to explain to their kid why this is happening," said Moreno.
The New York Immigration Coalition also demanded that the father and son "be reunited with each other immediately," while Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani condemned the Trump administration's "cruelty."
"Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria," said Mamdani. "Now he's in custody, alone. ICE won't say where. This cruelty serves no one. It must end."
Chuck Park, a candidate for US Congress in New York's 6th District, also in Queens, said Yuanxin "looks like my son did at that age."
"Big glasses. Sweet smile," said Park. "Now alone, scared at an unknown ICE detention center. Taken from his dad at a routine check-in. This is what we're fighting against. This kid is who we're fighting for."
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Medicare for All Sees Key Polling Shift as Americans Fume Over Surging For-Profit Insurance Premiums
"Everybody recognizes that our current healthcare system is broken," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "That’s why over 60% of the American people support Medicare for All."
Dec 04, 2025
With Affordable Care Act premiums surging and lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle scrambling to cobble together a last-minute fix, recent polling data shows that a strong majority of the American public supports a transformative proposal that few members of Congress are vocally advocating.
Data for Progress released survey results late last month showing that 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All,' that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans."
Overall support for such a system dropped just two percentage points when survey respondents were informed that Medicare for All would replace insurance premiums with higher taxes, abolish most private insurance, and eliminate copays and deductibles. In an analysis posted last week, The Lever's David Sirota observed that those results are a shift from earlier polling showing a sharp decline in support for Medicare for All once respondents were told the proposal would wipe out private insurance.
"That might have been the end of Medicare for All for another generation—except now the ACA is epically and undeniably failing to guarantee 'affordable' healthcare," Sirota wrote. "As private health insurers are now jacking up premiums for tens of millions of Americans, a new poll shows a huge majority of Americans now want Medicare for All—even if it entails eliminating private insurers and raising taxes."
The Data for Progress survey came as Republican and Democratic lawmakers continued floating temporary, Band-Aid solutions to avert catastrophic premium increases stemming in large part from the looming expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits, which lapse at the end of the year.
A new poll released Thursday by KFF found that "six in ten adults (61%) who buy their health coverage on the ACA marketplace say it is very or somewhat difficult to afford their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for medical care."
"When asked what they would do if the amount they pay for health insurance each month doubled, one in three enrollees (32%) say they are very likely to shop for a lower-premium plan (with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs), and one in four (25%) say they would be very likely to go uninsured," KFF noted.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday pitched a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies ahead of a planned vote next week—a proposal that Republicans are certain to oppose.
On the Republican side, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—who is linked to the largest Medicare fraud case in US history—is convening a group of Republican lawmakers to craft a likely dead-on-arrival ACA alternative that would implement some proposals floated by President Donald Trump, including new savings accounts that critics say would further enrich banks and insurance giants.
Scott warned in a statement to Axios earlier this week that "the more Republicans refuse to engage on this issue, the more we allow radical Democrats to lead our country on a slow creep towards the Socialist single-payer healthcare system they've always wanted."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, is reportedly planning to finalize a healthcare bill early next week, though no details were immediately available.
There's also a bipartisan framework led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), which calls for a one-year extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits "with targeted modifications," including intensified means-testing that would phase out the subsidies for those with incomes between 600% and 1,000% of the federal poverty level.
The Medicare for All Act, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) in the House, would have no such means-testing, guaranteeing comprehensive coverage to all for free at the point of service.
"Everybody recognizes that our current healthcare system is broken. That’s why over 60% of the American people support Medicare for All," Sanders said at a rally with nurses in the nation's capital on Wednesday. "The day will come when working-class Americans will be able to go to the doctor, dentist, or a nursing home without having to worry about the cost. We’re going to win this fight."
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