Dave Troester introduced the resolution briefly as almost the same as the resolution passed in January in Vernon County. He mentioned that the Finance Committee had urged him to find another opinion and contact the Farm Bureau. The county Farm Bureau had passed him to the state and the state simply quoted national Farm Bureau policy which was for the TPP “because it will benefit our membership”.
The baton was then passed to Forest who gave a brief overview of some of the nastiest implications of the TPP regarding food and other safety standards, labeling, job exportation, internet freedom, public safety, and the undermining of our national sovereignty by creating a dispute resolution system that puts corporations on an equal footing with nations and which is completely unaccountable and could override rulings of our highest courts. Forest emphasized that this was not even a resolution against this trade deal, just against giving the Obama administration the authority to unilaterally sign the treaty, write an “implementation bill” conforming US laws to the TPP dictates, and allowing Congress no participation or oversight until a last-minute up-or-down vote.
Pete Flesch commented that, despite some questions he had received on how appropriate it was for Crawford County to do something like this, he saw it as in the same vein as the resolution passed a couple years ago calling on the PSC to be more transparent with their high-capacity siting process, and opened it to questions and discussion.
Greg Russell said that it seemed like a good thing to sign on to, and talked about made in America and made in Wisconsin being a good thing to promote. He made the motion to adopt the resolution, Gerry Krachey 2nded, and the resolution passed unanimously.