A reaction from Pat Michaels follows. From the NYT article: Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.
In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.
“If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,” said Paul Bledsoe, a top climate change official in the Clinton administration who works closely with the Obama White House on international climate change policy.
Lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill say there is no chance that the currently gridlocked Senate will ratify a climate change treaty in the near future, especially in a political environment where many Republican lawmakers remain skeptical of the established science of human-caused global warming.
Read full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/us/politics/obama-pursuing-climate-accord-in-lieu-of-treaty.html?_r=0
Former Virgina State Climatologist and Cato Institute Director of the Center for the Study of Science Dr. Pat Michaels reacts:
When it comes to climate change, President Obama surely thinks he is king, subject to absolutely no advice and consent from our elected representatives.
The President clearly believes that a 2007 Supreme Court decision on greenhouse gases empowers him to completely bypass the Senate, including signing on to what is clearly a new United Nations treaty effectively limiting our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, without the necessary two-thirds vote required by the Constitution. And, while the nations of the world will clearly ignore such a treaty, he will impose whatever regulations he sees fit without approval of Congress. Sweeping regulation without legislative representation borders on tyranny, and it is doubtful that what he is proposing will ever stand a court challenge.
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Hans Erren – unfortunately, climate change IS a POLITICAL debate, with negative consequences for the citizens.
I’m glad this news is getting out now ahead of the 2014 elections in the U.S. All of the Democrats would just LOVE to campaign on climate change…[heh!]
Obama’s tactics and instincts are fairly opportunistic. He’s firing up his base while slitting the RINO’s from the reformers in the GOP. He’ll get more done with clowns like McCain and Graham in leadership positions then he is getting right now.
The GOP and many “skeptics” share the same affliction. They play the game like losers.
I’m pretty sure if the big zero comes knocking on Canada’s door, he will be given a response that has something to do with pounding, and something about sand.
And Hans, there is no “scientific debate”. This isn’t about science anymore, if indeed it ever was. It’s ONLY about politics. Nobody with even the slightest awareness of Science would believe this whole CAGW thing.
Anthony, just wanted to point out a typo in the title of this post. I believe you accidently missed the leading apostrophe and capitalized the k. I think it should be ‘king Obama. 😉
It’s standard usage that titles are capitalized when they precede the name of the title-holder. Lower case would be correct only in, “Obama, king of the wild frontier.”
I think the apostrophe was masking a crude epithet of which “-king” was the suffix.
I prefer the title; it puts this jerk from Capone organised crime central into perspective for me…
I prefer imperious president. No caps.
They can make symbolic gestures till the cows come home, but until it is ratified by the Senate it is simply a far-left, feel-good, political gesture – not binding on anyone except the willing clowns.
Absolutely incorrect. The EPA has the power to write and enforce any regulation it wants with respect to CO2/AGW since CO2 has already been defined as a pollutant. Thus any UN agreement can be forced upon the American people against their will by the EPA. As long as the Dems control the senate, there will be NO WAY to rein in the EPA. Almost ALL Dems believe that AGW is the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced. Thus any agreement will have the full force of law, even if it needs to be enforced at gun-point.
The “Glib-Lib-Rename-Game” in action. If the people get upset about you doing “X”, simply rename it to “Y”, and claim “See.. I’ve stopped doing ‘X’, I’m now doing ‘Y'”.
No, it’s not government-mandated racial discrimination, it’s “affirmative action”.
No, it’s not confiscation of property without due process, it’s “civil forfeiture”.
No, these guys aren’t backdoor cabinet appointees, they’re “Czars”.
No, it’s not a backdoor treaty, it’s an “accord”.
The Administration’s long game is that it really doesn’t care if Demos lose the Senate. After all, cap and trade cost them the House in 2010. The President clearly feels that no one–including the Supreme Court–is going to stop him, thanks to the SCOTUS interpretation of the Clean Air Act in its 2007 decision Mass. v. EPA. And the thinking in Washington (if such a thing can be said to happen here) is that Hillary will win in 2016 and continue down the same road. According to their logic, who therefore needs the silly legislative branch, anyway?
But this new UN proposal is a bridge too far. Some injured party is going to come forward and the courts will be compelled to put a stop to this nonsense. At Cato, the estimable Chip Knappenberger and I have worked for years putting together a record of federal filings on the abuse of science by the current Administration (the previous one was no prize, either) in anticipation of that coming day. Hopefully our long game will eventually beat theirs.
Thank you for service, your efforts in that direction.
May I be the first injured party? This has turned my stomach!
In fact, losing the Senate helps the long-game for Obama as the entire campaign of 2016 will be marketed about “do-nothings” ala Truman 48′. It also elevates RINO’s such as McCain and Graham both of whom are deal making disasters similar to George Bush Jr.
The GOP consensus is that green issues must be triangulated for the general public. Hence it’s always a matter of social decline and only a question of degree. Obama fires up the base and the GOP remains spineless. Similar to many in the skeptic community.
Will there be specific adverse consequences if the US does not abide by this agreement ? If the answer is “yes” , the semantic argument can be flushed down the drain and the “accord” will be found unconstitutional by the courts.
The first paragraph of the NYT article uses the verb “compel”. According to Dictionary.com, here are the definitions:
verb (used with object), compelled, compelling.
1.
to force or drive, especially to a course of action:
“His disregard of the rules compels us to dismiss him.”
2.
to secure or bring about by force.
3.
to force to submit; subdue.
4.
to overpower.
Any of those would surely require the consent of the Senate via its treaty authority.
This reply is to Peter–While the Constitution requires Senate ratification to make a treaty binding on the country (and subsequent passage of US statutes to enact the terms of the treaty into law), Obama apparently plans to just have his minions write regulations that will accomplish the same thing. No, it is not legal, but he has done it before, and likely will do it again, unless he is vigorously challenged in the courts.
President Obama will save the world from Climate Change but he cant save the Kurds ,the Jews and the Christians in Iraq and Syria.
True, but The One can only do so much between rounds of golf, so He has to pick and choose his battles ;o)
“… the established science of human-caused global warming.”
Proof positive that none of these people understands the meaning of “science.”
For a good analogy to this, look no further than Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958.
Guaranteed economic disaster from similar minded idealists, determined to leave their mark on history.
The rest of the world will be well aware that the US will not ratify this, just like Kyoto. An empty gesture.
Interesting that he would be so hell
bent on a non existent item, yet
oblivious to very real ones …eg “Global
Terrorism”.
How likely is it that other nations would agree to let the US “compel” them to do anything? Especially things that would damage their own economies?
This agreement is an empty gesture made for internal US political reasons..
From Federalist Paper 75 on the subject of treaties by Alexander Hamilton.
“However proper or safe it may be in governments where the executive magistrate is an hereditary monarch, to commit to him the entire power of making treaties, it would be utterly unsafe and improper to intrust that power to an elective magistrate of four years’ duration.”
Hamilton was prescient about future presidents making “utterly unsafe” decisions about treaties which is why the Constitution requires two-thirds vote to ratify.
Shouldn’t the title start with “Wan” (:>))
The emperor is wearing no clothes, which could make things rather chilly when CAGW doesn’t quite pan out as BHO’s science advisors are suggesting…
Isn’t it ironic that the death of the US constitution coincides with the demise of the CAGW hypothesis?
Obama could not have picked a worse time to impose $100’s of billions of CO2 rules and regulations on top of the $1.75 trillion/yr in business rules and regulation compliance costs that already exist. To make matters worse, US corporate taxes at 40% are already the highest in the industrialized world…
I have a tremendous amount of respect for US businessmen that are able to turn a profit, despite all the damage the US government inflicts on them. I couldn’t put up with it and set up my business overseas…
Obama calls US businessmen that move their operations overseas to avoid US anti-business legislation and taxes “traitors”…. I call it survival; like Burger King is trying to do now….
It’ll be interesting to see how this unconstitutional power grab works out…
Allen
August 26, 2014 at 8:59 pm
Bammy is legacy shopping, but not to worry; everything King Bammy touches turns into lead.
____________________________________
I hope it will not turn into lead. Cow manure would be more adequate. It’s sustainable and you can heat with it when dry.
The rise of a dictator.
Indeed Dr, another attempt to establish the New nWorld Order,
Russia is a permanent member of the UN security council. It has a veto.
It also has an economy that is largely dependent on fossil fuels. (As does China).
So this is irrelevant.
President Obama can play to his gallery all he wants and never threaten the US Constitution or economy.
He knows this will never get through Paris.
Anthony, I asked a day or so ago about the like ? dislike option and you replied that most people on the site did not like it. My opinion on the reply feature IT IS WAY WORSE! It is terrible , please go back to the original set-up, at least it gave people time to formulate an ( thought out) answer after thinking.
I agree.
It’s hard to spot the order of ideas as they appear up and down the thread.
But, your house – your rules, of course.
Huh? In what way does the “reply” feature prevent you from thinking before answering?
The Reply feature has an obvious downside. (If WP would prominently “highlight” comments that are new since one’s last visit that problem would be solved.) The upside is that it is easier to make sense of threads after they’ve cooled down, and it is easier to make comments. One needn’t copy the name and text of the commenter one is responding to down into one’s own comment, and put blockquotes around it. I think more people will post comments as a result.
PS: Another benefit: comments that go into moderation are less likely to get missed, because more people will scan backwards a bit from the last comment they read when they make a second visit to a thread.
But the three tiers and your out rule leaves “the last word” up to a game of sophist skills rather than the conclusion of a debate.
The danger is that the rest of the world will sign on to the dismal Treaty of Paris (if they don’t do it a year earlier in Lima in the hope of catching everyone off guard), and then wait till an eventual “Democrat” majority in the Senate makes ratification possible.
The essential step is to demand that an escape clause such as that in the Kyoto Protocol is included, allowing any nation to resile from the treaty on giving notice to the depositary state. Then, at least, the damage done by the treaty will be limited to the few remaining years before it becomes plain even to scientifically-illiterate governments that there is no need to do anything about CO2 except welcome it.
Very good about the escape clause. How could Democrats successfully (with the public) argue against a provision that is basically “precautionary”?
Re: “an eventual “Democrat” majority in the Senate makes ratification possible.” It requires a 2/3 majority to approve a treaty. (Although a bare majority might approve something that isn’t called a treaty.)
What I’m worried about is that China and India will be cozened into signing this agreement even though they will ignore its requirements and/or fudge their figures. (It’s a good thing that CO2-emissions-sensing satellite has gone up, as it will help detect such fudging.) I’ve suspected for years that something like this is in the works, based on warmists’ optimism about a 2015 treaty and about China’s supposed intentions to go green.
Christopher: I know that here in the UK we have a convention that one parliament cannot constrain the next (perhaps you could explain that one a bit more), but do they have the same thing in the US?
Actually, that is the reason almost every “balanced budget” plan fails in the US. The “planners” pretend to balance in ten years by putting off any REAL cuts until the 7th, 8th, or 9th years. The low information voters eat it up – “someone is finally doing something about the deficit!” they exclaim every time. The problem is budgeting is an annual thing so when time to make the cuts comes around, the new congress (who have grown to like the perks) decides they don’t want to be the stealer of the freebies and vote for their continued election. Thus one congress cannot bind the next, though the “entitlement” spending was set up with a poison pill attached – its spending is automatic year on year unless the congress affirmatively votes to remove said spending, thus making it immortal. No one wants to give the opposition the ability to say you stole grandma’s lunch even if there is a better way to get grandma that lunch.
Democrats already have a majority, though, as Roger notes, that is not sufficient, It is a pretty safe bet their majority will shrink, too, if not reverse, in the coming elections.
Mark
Think on what Mr. Obama is doing to us and then reflect on:
“The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so that he cannot fathom our real intent.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Except possibly what Jennifer Marohasy is doing in Australia, and what has happened in Canada with their reform and move away from AGW fanaticism no western nation or organization has taken any meaningful steps back from climate madness. Mr. Obama does not care. He “knows” he is right. He does not need data or facts or ethics to sustain his beliefs.
He knows how to control the public square in ways we have never seen in this nation’s history.
Here is some video of Obama meeting with his advisors right before he decided to pursue the climate accord
As Katherine @ur momisugly August 27, 2014 at 12:06 am and michaelspj @ur momisugly August 26, 2014 at 10:13 pm
it’s all about the powers Congress has delegated to the Executive. They use the phrases such as “the Secretary will determine”. The Affordable Care Act is full of such phrases which is how those thousands of pages of “regs” arrived on your doorstop along with your latest health insurance bill. But consider Obama has virtually eliminated coal using the EPA and trashes the oil industry using Keystone. It’s no likely Obama needs Congress to do anything given the wordsmithing the Executive Branch has developed over the years using those broad delegations. Maybe Boehner sues? Laughable.
So, what does Obama really mean regarding “politically binding”? It’s very simple. The Left needs their base to be “motivated”. It’s all just a variation of one of their main campaign themes. This one, if you’ve not noticed is “save the planet” which sometimes morphs to “save the planet for our children” and has a current morphing into “fight the war on women by saving the planet for our children”. Whatever it takes to movivate the base to get out and vote in 2016. This has worked in the past, is working today (and will surely “get out the vote” for them in the upcoming Presidential election cycle, full of “nonsense” phrases.