I've said that our Administration's USMCA trade agreement is a vast improvement over previous "free" trade deals, because it gets rid of the "investor-state dispute settlement" (or ISDS) system with Canada and curtails it with Mexico, and the ISDS system threatens to nullify our laws and outsource our jobs. However, the USMCA also locks in absurdly high prices for big pharma drugs, including many life-saving drugs, by extending big pharma corporations' monopoly rights for such drugs to 10 years, meaning they can block cheaper generics for that long, and folks shouldn't die before the altar of "intellectual property," particularly when big pharma all too often can't develop drugs without massive taxpayer investment. Don't think you have to accept big pharma monopolies to get the destruction of the ISDS system, because you are the boss of your government and you don't have to take any guff -- if you make your voice heard. Hence Public Citizen helps you tell our government to cut the big pharma monopolies out of the USMCA agreement.
Meanwhile, you may recall that the 2017 tax "reform" bill opened up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR) to oil drilling. But H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act, would simply repeal that section of the tax "reform" that permits drilling in ANWR. You might be able to recite all the good reasons we shouldn't drill in ANWR: that we're likely never going to get very much oil from ANWR anyway, that the porcupine caribou and the Gwich'in people who rely upon them merit the protection of the law, and that oil drilling in that region always carries with it the threat of air and water pollution, particularly in a region of the world that's rather difficult to clean up. And what are the arguments on the other side? "We needed Lisa Murkowski's vote on the tax bill" and "CEOs should have every opportunity to make more unearned money and everyone else be damned." Not that impressive, is it? So the Alaska Wilderness League helps you tell your House Reps to protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge by passing H.R. 1146.
Finally, the Fifth Circuit overturned the Department of Labor's fiduciary responsibility rule back in June. You remember the fiduciary responsibility rule, right? The one that would have required that retirement fund advisors put their clients' interest before their own? Naturally the new Administration fought that tooth and nail, since they believe all regulations that actually protect people from financial predators are bad. So now this Administration's Securities and Exchange Commission (or SEC) is making up new fiduciary responsibility rule -- and naturally the banksters love it! The SEC's proposal doesn't require retirement advisors to put their clients' interests first, nor does it crack down on the kinds of sales incentives that tend to prompt advisors to put their own interests first; common sense tells us a strong proposal would do these things. Hence Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell our SEC to protect good Americans' retirement funds by creating a fiduciary responsibility rule with teeth.
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