NACBA
02-26-2015, 09:45 AM
Elizabeth Warren has a talent for making huge fights out of obscure nominations and economic policy provisions. On Tuesday, Warren took aim at Scott Alvarez, the Federal Reserve's powerful general counsel, for his views on banking regulation. Virtually no one knows who Alvarez is. But he's arguably one of the five or six most powerful economic policymakers in Washington. He's the Leo McGarry of the Fed. Warren is unusual in possessing the policy chops to know that Alvarez matters as well as the political heat to make liberals care about him.
But making Scott Alvarez a household name is child's play compared to Warren's latest fight: whipping up outrage over the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. In a Washington Post op-ed today, Warren writes, "ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court."
Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/26/8114291/elizabeth-warren-tpp
But making Scott Alvarez a household name is child's play compared to Warren's latest fight: whipping up outrage over the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. In a Washington Post op-ed today, Warren writes, "ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court."
Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.
http://www.vox.com/2015/2/26/8114291/elizabeth-warren-tpp