Somerville State Representative Denise Provost and other members of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators will be speaking at a meeting to address policy issues in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). TTIP is a trade agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and the European Union. The meeting will be held on Friday, November 6, 2015, at the University of Vermont and is open to the public.

Representative Provost, a member of the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, will be speaking in panel with Reinhard Bütikofer and Bart Staes, members of the European Parliament; New Hampshire State Representative Bob Backus, Assistant Majority Leader, and member of the Science, Technology and Energy Committee; Iowa State Representative Charles Isenhart, the ranking member of the Environmental Protection committee; Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP); and Sharon Anglin Treat, a former Maine legislator and current member of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee.

The meeting will consist of a series of presentations and discussion groups lead by European and state panelists on issues of common concern in TTIP, including renewable energy and climate change, state procurement and farm-to-school practices, regulatory cooperation on pesticides and chemicals, and GMO labeling. Rep. Provost, who has previously testified before USTR on TTIP, said, “I’m grateful for the chance to discuss TTIP with fellow lawmakers. TTIP would affect us all, and we’ve had too little input into it.”

According to attorney Treat, “this meeting presents a unique opportunity to share research and perspectives between key members and staff of the European Parliament and U.S state government policymakers from Vermont and several other states, who are interested and engaged in trade policy and how it will impact consumers, food, energy, and environmental protections on both sides of the Atlantic.”