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#TruthInTrade Day 7: Trade Agreements Make It Easier To Drain Precious Resources from Communitie

March 25, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C.—U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02) today continued his #TruthInTrade campaign to highlight the unintended consequences of free trade agreements. Last week the campaign focused on concrete examples of how multinational corporations use legal advantages allowed by trade agreements to overturn laws protecting the environment and people. This week the stories will focus on the potential threats trade deals, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), pose to food safety, environmental protection, jobs, and the economy. More information about #TruthinTrade is available here.

“We can’t allow multinational corporations to drain our precious resources, reaping billions in profit, with no ability to have local control over these resources,” said Representative Pocan. “Over and over again, we have seen how trade agreements could give multinational corporations a legal advantage over local water rights and local environmental protection laws. Our communities and the safety of our constituents should not be threatened by the expansion of these destructive practices, while lacking local control, under potential trade agreements.”

Multinational water bottling companies drain U.S. communities of their water for next to nothing, bottling and selling tap water for billions in profits – dumping the environmental costs onto the community. Local control is wrestled away from residents who are helpless to stop destructive water extraction practices in their communities. The loss of groundwater from these practices can alter the level and flow of springs, lakes, rivers and drinking water wells resulting in economic and environmental devastation. Trade agreements negotiated in secret could make it easier for these multinational water bottling companies to secure local water rights, bypass local environmental protection laws and drain communities of their precious resources, not even allowing local laws protecting water extraction to apply.

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