Public Citizen on the Trans Pacific Partnership

Source: Public Citizen.

Top congressional leaders, including Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the chair and vice-chair of the Senate finance committee, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, chair of the House ways and means committee, announced their support for “fast track” approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

This would mean that the House would have 60 days to discuss this complicated agreement, and the Senate an additional 30 days, after which they would have to vote the agreement up or down, without amendment.

But the fact that the leaders support fast track doesn’t mean it’s a done deal.  The procedure still must go before the House and Senate as a whole.

I think the TPP is a bad idea, but, even it were a good idea, it deserves more discussion than fast track would allow.

Doctors Without Borders on the TPP

It is not too late to modify these harmful rules.  Negotiations among the United States and 12 other nations have been  are in the process of being completed, and it is now will then be up to the United States Congress to approve the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement—or not.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation on the TPP

Well, it’s too late now to try to influence the negotiations.

Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, the chair and vice-chair of the Senate finance committee, and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, the chair of the House ways and means committee, agreed to support fast-track approval for the proposed 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

This would mean that the House would have 60 days to discuss the agreement, and the Senate would have an additional 30 days, before they voted “yes” or “no”, with no possibility of amendment.

The fact that President Obama and powerful Congressional leaders support fast track does not mean that it has been approved.  The procedure requires a vote of the House and Senate, and, since there is strong opposition in both parties, it may well not be approved.

Tesla’s electric car patents are opened to all

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, announced that Tesla is making its electric car patents available to all free of charge—a decision that, as Tyler Cowen remarked on his Marginal Revolution blog, could be as important as Henry Ford’s 1914 decision to pay auto workers the hitherto-unheard-of wage of $5 a day.

Elon Musk

Musk decided that it is more important to grow the market for electric cars than to use Tesla’s patents to dominate that market.   I hope that decision pays off for Tesla as Henry Ford’s decision did for Ford, because it removes an obstacle to technological progress.

The original purpose of patents was to give inventors an incentive to share their secrets, in return for temporary monopolies on their inventions.  But in recent years, the scope of patent protection has been extended by law to the extent that it stifles competition and economic growth.   Maybe Musk’s business model will change that.  I hope so.   Good for him for trying!

LINKS

‘All Our Patents Are Belong to You,” the announcement by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk.

Tesla Making Patents ‘Open Source’ to Boost Electric Cars by Alan Ohsman for Bloomberg.