Elections Shake Up Climate Policy Picture
Guest essay by H. Sterling Burnett
The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has left reeling the environmental lobbyists and activists and international leaders committed to reducing fossil fuel use to meet the Paris climate agreement. As the Washington Post noted, “Trump comes into office with a plan to toss out most of what President Obama achieved on energy and the environment.”
Trump, who has called the alleged human-caused climate change catastrophe a “hoax,” vowed to “cancel” the United States’ participation in the Paris climate accord. Trump also has committed to scrapping the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s signature effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trump has said he will review and possibly reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) determination carbon dioxide is a pollutant endangering public and environmental health (the “endangerment finding”). Trump can’t undo the endangerment finding with the stroke of a pen, but he is in a position to get that done over time. Reversing the endangerment finding would end the legal justification for a range of climate regulations. In the process, it also would end radical environmental activists’ ability to use the courts to impose climate policies on an unwilling public whose elected representatives have repeatedly rejected climate policies.
Before the election, Trump said he would reverse Obama administration rules imposing undue burdens on businesses. In particular, Trump said he would cut EPA’s budget dramatically, virtually reducing it to an advisory agency, and review all EPA regulations, eliminating many of them because, “Over-regulation presents one of the greatest barriers to entry into markets and one of the greatest costs to businesses that are trying to stay competitive.”
Trump says he wants to open up more federal lands to oil and gas drilling and eliminate regulations that have contributed to the decline of the coal industry.
The Washington Post reported,
“Scott Segal, co-head of government relations at the legal and lobbying firm Bracewell, said in an email a Trump administration would be ‘clearly in favor of enhanced exploration and production of oil and gas as a tenet of energy, economic and national security policy.’”
Environmentalists and some foreign dignitaries fear what Trump’s election means for America’s climate commitments and environmental policies. “We’re feeling angry and sad and contemplative,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Post.
Asked by the Post how “the environmental movement would deal with a President Trump, Bill McKibben, founder of the climate action group 350.org, said in an email
‘[I] don’t really know.’”
The Guardian reports international climate negotiators at the United Nations’ climate talks in Morocco say “it would be a catastrophe if Trump acted on his pledge to withdraw the US from the deal, which took 20 years to negotiate, and to open up public land for coal, oil and gas extraction.”
Speaking to reporters at the Morocco meeting, Ségolène Royale, the French environment minister who helped negotiate the Paris accord, said Trump could not easily withdraw the United States from the treaty.
“The Paris agreement prohibits any exit for a period of three years, plus a year-long notice period, so there will be four stable years.”
On this point Royale is whistling past a graveyard. Trump can end the United States’ participation in the Paris climate agreement either directly or indirectly. Directly, he can “unsign” the agreement. Regardless of the text of the agreement, because it has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate as required by the Constitution, it has no force of law in the United States. And because the treaty sets only voluntary goals with no legal enforcement mechanism, other countries have no legal way of enforcing the agreement’s terms on the United States.
Indirectly, Trump can scuttle the country’s participation by reversing Obama’s climate actions and not replacing them with alternative climate policies. If Trump does this, U.S. participation in the Paris climate agreement dies from neglect.
SOURCES: Climate Change Weekly; Washington Post; and The Guardian
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Trump’s ability to affect Anything is still over two months away. Even without ratification by congress, oh!bummer! can do a great deal of damage :/
‘still do’
What can he “still do” ? He’s a lame duck pres. now. All he can do is a few more exec orders which will get reversed before the ink is dry. And honestly he sounds like he is going to work for a smooth, cooperative hand-over, where he is probably hoping temper some of Trump more outlandish claims. rather than make make a mess and crap on the carpet in the oval office on the way out.
How about because the treaty IS NOT A TREATY, it’s an “agreement”.
The Paris charade and the climate hoax is now dead in the water.
China has agreed to do nothing other than to expand its economy in the foreseeable future; US will pull-out from this toothless, meaningless “agreement” and the only fools still playing will be a cluster of european countries who are now quaking in their boots after Brexit and Trump results.
If they continue to screw around and fail to reform their anti-democratic EU project, in very short shrift they will be washed aside by populist movements like France’s neo-fascist National Front.
Like Nigel Farrage told them in the EU pseudo-parliament : “you’re not laughing now, are you?”
Greg,
There are some irreversible things he can do.
He can designate more Federal lands and sea-areas as Monuments. That move is difficult to undo, even with Congress.
Non-climate/environmental irreversible things he can do:
He can probably forgive a a huge chunk of Federal Student Loans. Once forgiven, that is impossible to “un-forgive.”
He can issue boatloads of pardons to criminals and to ptential criminals like the Clintons and her inner circle.
He will likely order the US military to bring the remaining Gitmo detainees to the US mainland, despite that being illegal.
joelobryan: How do you pardon someone not convicted of a crime? I didn’t know there was “pre-emptive” pardoning of someone who is not yet convicted.
Reality Check–you must be rather younger than me, and not remember Watergate and its aftermath. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon before any chaareges were filed, and the pardon stuck. To recycle a joke of the period, Nixon’s last words to Ford on leaving office were “Pardon me”.
Greg —
“France’s neo-fascist National Front”????
You must be some liberal who still thinks he can get away with calling anyone he doesn’t like a Nazi. Would you care to guess how many times Democrats have called Republicans Nazis? If you want to be listened to I suggest you drop those slurs from your rhetoric.
Eugene WR Gallun
Tom Halla – I’m old enough to remember Ford’s pardon of Nixon. But it might not serve as a precedent because it was never legally challened in court. I remember at the time almost everyone just wanted Nixon to go away and they wanted an end to the whole Watergate mess. Even at the time I remember a lot of people saying that Ford’s pardon probably wasn’t legal but who cared, just end it.
Since under our laws you are innocent until proven guilty how can an innocent person be pardoned of a crime they didn’t do? Seems to me that you have to be found guilty before you can be pardoned?
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions
From the U.S. Department of Justice to God Ears:
Excerpt:
“Under the Constitution, only federal criminal convictions, such as those adjudicated in the United States District Courts, may be pardoned by the President. In addition, the President’s pardon power extends to convictions adjudicated in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and military court-martial proceedings. However, the President cannot pardon a state criminal offense.”…
“Under the Department’s rules governing petitions for executive clemency, 28 C.F.R. §§ 1.1 et seq., an applicant must satisfy a minimum waiting period of five years before he becomes eligible to apply for a presidential pardon of his federal conviction. The waiting period, which is designed to afford the petitioner a reasonable period of time in which to demonstrate an ability to lead a responsible, productive and law-abiding life, begins on the date of the petitioner’s release from confinement. Alternatively, if the conviction resulted in a sentence that did not include any form of confinement, including community or home confinement, the waiting period begins on the date of sentencing. In addition, the petitioner should have fully satisfied the penalty imposed, including all probation, parole, or supervised release before applying for clemency. Moreover, the waiting period begins upon release from confinement for your most recent conviction, whether or not this is the offense for which pardon is sought.”…
FN’s president and daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen (FN’s founder), Marine Le Pen is pushing an extreme left agenda, with price control on bread. It seems like she hates capitalism as much as communism, and want to control factories to keep jobs. Marine Le Pen is very much Bernie Sanders + “build the wall”.
Jean-Marie Le Pen is a nationalist who was too young to enter the Résistance against the nazis. He likes joking about the Shoah and doubting its reality for the love of provocation. He is a say-anything kind of guy, a sort of uber-anti-PC. Jean-Marie Le Pen is very strongly anti communist. He also promoted some of Ronald Reagan’s ideas.
Marion-Maréchal Le Pen is more a catholic traditionalist who doesn’t want to forbid abortion, but who says that family planing is doing too much leftist propaganda (notably, pro immigration) and cannot get subsidies while they do. Marion-Maréchal Le Pen is considered very much more pro-business and less leftist than Marine Le Pen. She is also more articulate.
French’s “extreme right” a diverse bunch with almost very nuance of almost every idea.
“The threat is stronger than the execution” – Nimzowitsch
“Even without ratification by congress, oh!bummer! can do a great deal of damage :/”
You’ve got that right. Obama no doubt has a lot of last minute details he wants to clean up before he leaves the White House, and you know anything he does will require undoing in the future, because it will not be beneficial. What a disaster Obama has been for the whole world.
Obama’s can still operate through the UN Security Council and, possible, through the UN General Assembly. Trump could still reject those actions for the US. It would muddy the waters a bit more.
What will happen is a large number of well-funded lawsuits. The ACLU, for example, has already announced their intent to sue. What would insure a clear win for the anti-warmist would be Trump appointing someone like Marc Morano as a Supreme Court Justice.
SCOTUS appointments should be made on the basis of support for the Constitution as written, not on the basis of ideology, even that which I support.
Trump started affecting quite a bit starting Tuesday night. The coastal blue babies are rioting where? In Democrat controlled areas. Is their lack of control a good image? The EPA is in a panic, the change that is coming is already upon them. Who is in charge of their transition? Paris 2015 is dead and Trump needs to little now or later. He can if he wishes confirm its passing later, if closure is required.
The forces are gathering against him. Even that dreadful left wing mag National Geographic has joined in.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/president-trump-global-climate-change-denial-environment/?utm_source=NatGeocom&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=now_you_know_20161112&utm_campaign=Content&utm_rd=623571460
Forces ?? National Geographic ?? I bet he’s scared sh!tless. Is someone going to roll one up and hit him with it ??
Dear Gina McCarthy,
None of the EPA’s environmental agenda has been deemed constitutional, so stop trying force it down the American people’s throat. You are entering the extra-legal world of anti-democracy!
Accept the collective wisdom of the last election and stop any more environmental tyranny, pretty please!
Surely you mean :”Dear Richard Windsor”???
Dear Gina McCarthy, none of the EPA’s environmental agenda has been deemed constitutional, so stop trying force it down the American people’s throat. You are entering the extra-legal world of anti-democracy!
Accept the collective wisdom of the last election and stop any more environmental tyranny, pretty please!
Best,
Steve
+1
Who Gina McCarthy. ??
She that pushy broad who used to work at the EPA back in the old days ?
I heard she is still looking for a paying job, which is pretty difficult, when you simply don’t have any marketable skills that anybody needs.
g
Wait – don’t you mean ‘Richard Windsor’?
which took 20 years to negotiate…and still got nowhere
They can go on forever…….
The wrong people are still telling me to not vote for Trump
The effing french of all people. A lame president, with his ex ex exs in power telling a true business leader what he cannot do.!
Se degagez Royal you stupid woman. Socialists will destroy every country in which they are dominant and that includes the uk. And yes Cameron was a socialist
So true, Cameron is no conservative. He modelled the old Tory party into Blue Labour in honour of his hero Tony Blair. The referendum result was just the first step. We need to purge the centrist liberals from power next. The vast open space of the centre right lies empty, waiting for a party to take advantage of it to get support from both Labour and Tory alike. The referendum showed that the old class divisions no longer exist and that as Baroness Thatcher found out, the so called working class can have aspirations too. If only UKIP could rise to the challenge but sadly I think it is unlikely.
Obama relied too much on executive orders and regulations to leave a lasting impact. Probably the major effect will be Obama appointed judges trying to preserve his legacy, so a very determined appointee to the Supreme Court is required to override that sort of thing. I have seen a story on the web that Trump is considering Ted Cruz, who I tend to agree with on both constitutional law and the green blob. I wonder if Cruz would take it if offered.
Wonder how we could get President Trump (ooo, that sounds delicious!) to consider Glenn Reynolds or Eugene Volokh for the Supreme Court. 😀
One must wonder whether Princeton would celebrate that with quite the same fervor with which it feted Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Is there a difference between a celebration and a wake?
The Obozo Marxist Mediocraties have had ample opportunity to reveal their truly banal selves, No legal thinking ability and truly sub par IQs… They won’t be missed.
“I have seen a story on the web that Trump is considering Ted Cruz, who I tend to agree with on both constitutional law and the green blob. I wonder if Cruz would take it if offered.”
I would like to see Ted Cruz on the Supreme Court. I think we could count on him to defend the U.S. Constitution the way we want it protected. A lot of judges are to some extent unknowns, and don’t always do as you think they would once they get on the Supreme Court, but I think we could count on Cruz to be his consistent self when it comes to the U.S. Constitution.
Agreed! I would NOT want DJT to use ALL of his possible future opportunities on Cruz clones, but rather to replace Scalia as the sole hard line Constitutionalist. If “near literal” interpretations are are to harsh, there will be others on the bench (e.g. Thomas) to temper his recommendations, but I think we need that one Justice that clearly states and stands firm on what the founders intended.
(I’ve heard legal scholars predict that it will be Scalia’s opinions, even when he was on the losing side of a decision, that will live on longest in legal text books.)
If Ted Cruz gets appointed to the SC he will turn into another Breyer. His wife is a Globalist.
+10
Have the Senate vote on ratification of the Paris Agreement, as was done with Kyoto. See if 2/3 of the Senators will approve or reject.
“The President may form and negotiate, but the treaty must be advised and consented to by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Only after the Senate approves the treaty can the President ratify it. Once it is ratified, it becomes binding on all the states under the Supremacy Clause.”
In 1997, by a vote of 95–0, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution that made clear that it would never ratify the Kyoto agreement, which the Clinton Administration would sign anyway the following year.
Didn’t vote:
Bryan (D-NV), Not Voting
Feinstein (D-CA), Not Voting
Grams (R-MN), Not Voting
Harkin (D-IA), Not Voting
Reid (D-NV), Not Voting
Who do you propose to send the “treaty” to the Senate? Obama is unlikely and Trump has need to.
That is Trump has NO need to.
Obama can’t do anything substantive between now and the Inauguration. Executive order is all he has and those will be undone rather quickly so I don’t understand the fear of Obama “doing” anything.
“so I don’t understand the fear of Obama “doing” anything.”
You don’t live in Israel, I’m guessing.
He can give pardons, which would be permanent.
Other tan that, nada.
@mod
@author
Ségolène Royal, actually.
As in, “royal”, “de nature royale”, related with the King.
I hear China is stepping up to the plate as the “leader” of the Paris climate agreement. Suddenly China is pro-climate. Who knew?
They need to get rid of a million acres of solar panels they’ve already manufactured. When that is done we may see wind of change, not that they are going to stop building about one hundred coal powered electricity generating stations in the next few years. .
Dear Vukcevik:
As usual from you, good, sensible, practical comments.
The Chinese see themselves as the aspiring hegemon, and nothing is going to stop them. Kruschev said in the UN: “We are going to bury the West!” … but failed. The Chinese have the wind in their sails and they’re not going to goof this opportunity. The US is broke (owing most of it to the Chinese). Some say that they both have each other ‘by the balls’ but time was when no-one had USA ‘by the balls’..
If we ‘flip’, they’ll ‘flop’ and v.v. and continue to turn the screws every which way in the new ‘Long March’ to achieve World hegemony..
Just as Reagan stared the Russians down, I’m hoping Trump will have the ‘balls’ to resist Chinese expansionism, both by World influence and territorial.
Ross King – “I’m hoping Trump will have the ‘balls’ to resist Chinese expansionism…”
Seriously?
Trump just achieved a win (against a “pre-ordained” opponent) that “97%” of pundits were convinced was impossible, and in the process carried several candidates for election/re-election to home plate with him – with all of the MSM and a lot of his own party actively bucking his efforts – and preserving the Senate & House majorities.
Trump has his faults, but Testicular Fortitude is definitely not one of them.
That would be “lack of” …
Obama managed to almost double the national debt, but, should it come to the worst, the U.S. can erase it with a truckload of banknote paper and several barrels of green ink.
China cannot let the US become energy/oil independent. If they do the US debt owed to China will not become “too big to fail”. They need the US to default so they become the reserve currency.
Someone has invented a method of inexpensively and benignly separating hydrocarbons from any plant. This will drive the price of oil below the Middle East extraction cost and extend the life of oil out another 20,000 years at sub US$10/barrel cost.
China wants to take over a bankrupt reserve currency. Energy price and independence is the key. Renewables are not going to be competitive without subsidies (taxing and printing). China manipulates its currency to get US dollars and complete a massive energy expansion build.
China is not ready to take on the financial world yet. Russia will counter with a permanent base in Syria.
If the US can fix their energy problem they can still come out the winner. They can swap debt for energy.
Geoff!! Where you been hiding!
Brilliant analysis.
All to do with ultimate Chinese hegemony.
To paraphrase: “Follow the power-urge!”
In order to make sure plants cannot be used as an inexpensive source of hydrocarbons it is a requirement that the growth rate of plants be reduced so that plants can only be used as a fibre and food source. The best way to achieve this is to demonize the major plant food, CO2.
This strategy also includes the other major dead plant source, coal and peat.
Ross
Only about $1,8T of the roughly $18T US debt is owned by China – the vast majority of the rest is owned by either the US Fed or the us population (e.g.: pension funds, etc).
The ability to inexpensively separate oil from any plant without revealing the process to others is crucial to the maintaining a reserve currency without reliance on printing “money”. The reserve would be always backed by energy and hard currency swaps. The price of such a swap would then be dependent on strategic allocation (we don’t want a war so your military cannot get enough energy to win) and market forces based only on demand rather than supply/demand. There would always be enough supply that could be brought on line to satisfy demand. So the price would be set below anyone else’s ability to maintain an alternative source cf OPEC.
Geoff,
The debt solution is simply to inflate it away to a mere small fraction of its current value.
Geoff said on November 12, 2016 at 7:26 pm
What kind of silly wacko thinking was that?
The US owes China so damn much money that China can’t afford to let the US fail.
Only lefty liberal miseducated wackos truly believe that …… “killing the goose that lays them their ‘Golden Eggs’ is the right thing to be doing and should be done”.
Read the following and try hard as hell to understand what it means, to wit:
Chinese workers et el are shipping $481.9 billion worth of manufactured goods to the US this year alone.
US workers et el only shipped $116.2 billion worth of manufactured goods to China this year …… along with $26,9 billion in cash just to pay the debt interest.
GETTA clue, …. if the US fails …… then China fails ……. because there is no other country on earth that China can ship that yearly production of $481.9 billion worth of manufactured goods.
They are pro climate when it means that the US and Europe will destroy their own industrial bases without them lifting a finger. I think it was Sun Tzu who said don’t stop your enemy while he is busy slitting his own throat.
Actually, I think the quote and it’s variations is attributed to Napoleon. He is reported as saying, “In that case,” said Napoleon, “let us wait twenty minutes; when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.”
Bruce, it’s not just China
Every country out there benefits by knocking us down.
..but yes, if they can put a wrench in our production
the more production moves to them
Sure, but they needed someone to take the “leadership” role, which it appears China has “gallantly” done.
One can only hope that Trump keeps his word on climate change, and climate change dies a quick death.
He can’t. Segolene Royale will shriek at him if he tries.
Right, so Trump, the man who knows nothing of the science is just going to make all this warming go away. I realise your team think he is good, but he is not God.
Art thou in dire needst of a deity S. Simon?
Will you confess your sins and save your soul?
And skin…
And job…
What warmth?
When Trump’s teams cleans the NOAA house of ill repute;
• we may once again view temperatures with measurement errors,
• without the clumsy abuses and tortures NOAA calls adjustments,
• without splicing datasets together and pretending they are one,
• without using shipboard engine intake water temperatures to adjust other more pure ocean temperatures,
• without using models as input,
• without using models and pretending model outputs are better than actual observations,
• with proper surface station distributions,
• with proper surface station installations, maintenance and temperature verification,
• without using temperatures to contaminate inconvenient temperature records up to 1200 km away?
Is that your desire, S. Simon? To once again view temperatures in their original pure pristine state?
What warming?
Where do trolls go, when their reasons for existence are but dust in the wind causing red sunsets?
Please, don’t bother to let us know!
Can you tell us what science the lawyer Obama knows? Or, lets say, Obama relies on “advisers”, and those “advisers” would not be politically motivated at all, right?
PatrickMJD,
Obama honestly believes he is always the smartest guy in the room. He thinks himself a better speech writer than his professional speech writers. A better policy analyst that scores of professional policy analysts. He’s the pinnacle Progressive, knowing what best for everyone else, including his Lesser progressives.
And That is exactly why his Legacy is about to go into the Trump shredder.
Neither are you Simon. And your science is wrong. The solutions that are part of your agenda are devastating. They are only designed politically to cripple western democracies. Nobody else really cares and is not enforceable in the least. The US can’t even stop N. Korea from building a bomb. Which is a real threat of course to the people of Japan, S Korea for sure, and parts of the western US.
After 20 years none of the doomsday predictions have occurred, not one. Way past deadlines or the ” closing of the window “. By the way, what’s going on in eastern Russia ?
Simon, November 12, 2016 at 9:36 pm
With regard to the issue I see no way Trump can do worse than Obama, Clinton, et al. Additionally, you have no idea what Trump knows or does not know about science.
I have over 180 credit hours of post graduate science education, I’d wager that Trump has more than the 3 undergraduate credit hours that your hero Al Gore has taken, I have read the original scientific papers; and concluded that it a disproven and discredited theory, therefore a hoax as well. BTW, your genius Gire flunked, giveing him exactly ZERO hours of collegiate Science training, I don’t think his CAGW “guidance” is worth a proverbial bucket of warm spit.
stas peterson: Irrespective of all the letters in your handle, and any course work you may have completed, Gore did win the Nobel 2007 Peace prize (and got $). Anything in your curriculum vitae that can top that?
Simon:
In fact your “science” is pseudoscience. If willing to debate the issue please respond.
China will be pro climate because it siuts their political and economic interests. I doubt that the steely eyed engineers running the place have any time for the CO2 scam.
> Trump can’t undo the endangerment finding with the stroke of a pen…
True, but he can in effect made it irrelevant by taking a play from Obama’s handbook with regards to immigration… simple don’t enforce it. The courts have already ruled in an immigration case that the immigration agents can’t enforce a law if the administration says that it doesn’t want them to. He could simply order EPA agents to do other things than measure CO2 emissions of a power plant.
I believe Trump can demand the EPA provide proofs and then publicly defend them.
Coupled with the evidence already extant regarding EPA – Activist collusions where the EPA depended on activists to write their regulations and findings; I think it would be easy to force EPA to admit error and retract their absurd findings.
What Obama used to corrupt the agencies, as he is/was their chief, Trump can use to reverse the situation.
I doubt Trump plans to flout any law as Obama did. Trump’s plans appear directly aimed at eliminating the regulations and many of the clerical staff who believe their job is to “think up” and then “enforce” regulations.
He needs to appoint a criminal investigator as the IG of EPA and have his Attorney General give full access to the FBI and other forensic investigative agencies to pull all the deleted/private/colluded email chains into a full blown criminal case leading to the full prosecution of the “civil servants” who colluded with the activists to pervert the data. Any office within EPA that attempts to thwart the IG or delay or hinder him in any way should be immediately terminated as is an already allowable but almost never used portion of the IG law.
Seems Mr Kerry got a letter from some members of congress about being up right and straight with other representatives at the cop22 meeting.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/244c9583-e2ec-47cf-a329-28c7c9f64fe3/letter-to-unfccc-re-paris-agreement-final.pdf
You know I think he sitting in a dark place right now wondering what to do. All of them bet the farm that Hillary would win. The French and English proponents for the Paris agreement do not understand that It has no more validity than if I signed it for laughs.
michael
They understand. The problem is the American people threw them a curve. They thought Hillary would win. In fact, they were expecting the Democrats to have control of Congress as well…. the best laid plans of mice and men aften gang aglee.
The California AG and now Senator elect still has not responded to a Congressional subpoena. Has something like this this ever happened before?
In various forms. Congress asked for climate documents from NASA. The cry went out that scientists couldn’t do their work under such conditions. Which I find strange, as all science is always under review. Otherwise, they enter the realm of hocus pocus.
The New Yorker, Nov.5, 2016
Maya Harris, top adviser to Clinton and s/o Kamala Harris California AG and now Senator elect.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/meet-maya-harris-hillary-clintons-progressive-link
More online on this topic.
Barbara November 12, 2016 at 4:58 pm
“The California AG and now Senator elect still has not responded to a Congressional subpoena. Has something like this this ever happened before?”
Hi Barbara, I’m not sure but I seem to remember that their is one final hurdle to sit is the House of Representatives. If there is cause they can simply refuse to seat them.
Refusing a subpoena could be viewed as such. But its a tough climb
michael
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseated_members_of_the_United_States_Congress
Ballotpedia
Maya Harris:
“Prior to Clinton’s campaign, Harris was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and at the Ford Foundation.”
Hillary Clinton named Harris as one of her senior advisors in April 2015.
https://ballotpedia.org/Maya_Harris
I took the time to read the letter from the senators. It is excellent: sober, clear, non-confrontational yet firm in its insistence that the agreement is strongly opposed by Congress (both House and Senate) and has been ruled against by the Supreme Court. At one point it says the effect of Obama’s signature is sort of like his giving a speech in favor of the agreement–totally unenforceable. I am very happy to see this letter, and impressed by the senators who signed it–some pretty well-known names. Read it, if you have time.
See my legal,technical comment below. Easy, peasy.
That’s a great letter. Senator Inhofe continues to be the tip of the spear in the Senate. The letter was CC’ed to Gina McCarthy, too. It basically says the US is not bound in any formal way to uphold any of the Paris provisions and that the “agreement” is just Obama’s personal political opinion. As president he can of course direct the executive branch as he sees fit, but so can the next president. The Paris COP21 agreement in no way binds any administration, nor the current or future branches of Congress, nor does it give any external political element legal tools for holding the US accountable for deviation or inaction. Heh heh heh. Way to go, Senators!
Todd Stern’s argument to prevent the stay was one of the best “circular arguments” (begging the question?”) that I’ve seen in a long time.
If I understand correctly, the stay was based on the notion that implementation would do irreparable harm with no measurable benefits.
Stern argues if that if we fail to enact these restrictions that provide no benefits, other countries “might reduce their efforts or fail to achieve their commitment” to enact their own restrictions (that provide no benefits).
It doesn’t sink in that the opposition to the Clean Power Plan is not political, but rather challenges the basic assumptions upon which it is based.
Excellent summation, Mickey Reno.
Exactly. They don’t understand that the US President can’t just agree to things. It is a two part process and they just don’t process that. So they think that once the President agrees to something and signs it then it is enforce on the US. But in reality it still requires the US Senate to ratify it or it isn’t valid.
And the Paris climate accords where never even sent to the Senate by President Obama.
Paleoclimatic reconstruction of the atmosphere show hundreds of millions of years where the carbon dioxide level was 2, 3, or even 4 times Hansens’ “tipping point”. And that’s just the bottom of the error bars. AGW is a hoax, alright, from the very beginning.
Research shows that North America is a net carbon dioxide sink, has been for decades, and efficiency improvements were reducing our carbon dioxide production even before the recession. No reason for that to change. Not that I expect the trend in CO2 to change, we’re recovering from very low levels during the prior glaciation periods (which we’re only in an interregnum).
The “activists” are worried about the end of their gravy train, and of their influence.
Larry D, Agreed, Trump and his team should point out exactly that point regarding the clean up of the energy industry but as others have pointed out not many people see this currently as a priority but I still think it should a point they need to have ready before the left makes it one of those issues that stymies the other more important issues like trade, jobs and healthcare. The greens do not need any ammunition to gum up the transition period. With all these comments by the left about ” coming together as a Nation” rings large alarm bells. I wonder what their strategy is to disrupt Trump and our side.
Once the green globalists were little old ladies in tennis shoes who attended Esperanto courses and complained about wax on apples. Now they have governments, multi-billion dollar budgets and institutions like NASA and the UN at their entire disposal.
Guys, better be careful Big Green doesn’t eat us up the way Big Red could only threaten to do. (Anyway, once sliced, Big Green IS Big Red.)
Yeah, Big Green won’t be going quietly. They are going to make a lot of noise. That doesn’t change the fact they are wrong on the issues.
mosomoso … you hit the nail on the head!
mosomoso + many ( see my comment to Larry D above in the thread.)
The Paris agreement and its impact on the US policies is something the US legal process will have to settle. The Paris agreement has three modes for the countries to signify its concurrence after the initial signing but before the agreement comes into force/ The three modes are ratification, acceptance and approval. The document does not clarify or differentiate the differences in terms of obligations, mode of participation and withdrawal. As far as the Paris agreement is concerned the three modes and accession once the agreement enters into force are the same and equal.
Most of the environmental treaties requiring ratification are non-binding legal instruments without any penalties for non-compliance and depends on the enactment of domestic legislation for implementation. Peer pressure or loss of prestige that could trickle to other environmental issues that the country would like to take the moral high ground or leadership or WTO cases are the basic mode of compliance to the non-binding agreement. Sometimes if there is a collective loss of face, the signatories may just change the definitions. For example the national communications of a number of countries to the UNFCCC show an increase in carbon dioxide sequestration from the forestry sector but in between the reporting period there was significant deforestation that would be contrary to common sense. Well, UN just changed the definition of forest cover.
It is natural for China to take the leadership of the climate change debate. It has nothing to loss and everything to gain.
It is not a close question. The Paris agreement has not been submitted to the US Senate for ratification, it is not binding on the US government no matter what it says. And, everybody in the whole world knows it.
I explained china above.
WS, it is not an never was a treaty requiring 2/3 Senate approval, for two reasons. It is not binding, and it contains an opt out. There are very simple solutions. See my legal comment below.
“It is natural for China to take the leadership of the climate change debate.”
Yes, the Chinese leadership is very experienced at totalitarian rule, so they are a natural to take over UN operations. Birds of a feather, flock together.
eo:
That assumes a country has previously committed via treaty to be liable to such agreements.
To my knowledge, no country except within the EU, has so committed themselves.
The United States of America has definitely not entered any such agreement.
For all purposes, B. Obama and Kerry agreeing is a personal problem between them and whomever thinks they’re committed.
After the Senate does away with the filibuster (thanks Dirty Harry!), all that needs to be done is to pass a law taking carbon dioxide out of the purview of the EPA. Then it will indeed be a “stroke of the pen” when President Trump signs the bill. This has the outstanding advantage of being very difficult to reverse in the future.
Congress needs to better dilineate in the Clean Air Act what is a pollutant, not just eliminating CO2 as a regulatable pollutant, but also things like combustion water vapor and cooling steam/vapor, to prevent future “pen and phone” executive mischief without Congressional consent.
Same thing with the Clean Water Act, and better more precisely define what is a navigable waterway.
On the Endangered Species Act, there needs to be a clear cost:benefit analysis and more consideration of economic impacts in order to stop abuses like the San Joquin snail darter scam that is diverting huge amounts of irrigation water to be flushed into San Francisco Bay and wasted.
HA, they don’t even talk about “navigable waterways” anymore because that was a “strict limitation” that drastically curbed the EPA’s authority to mandate, control and run “rip shod” over millions of acreage of privately owned land.
Now days the magic word is “wetlands” ….. which definitely needs to be more precisely defined.
HA, today, the EPA’s definition of “wetlands” is interpreted as ……. “if you own property that has a “wet spot” on it after a rainstorm, …… then it is classified as “wetlands” and the EPA can tell you what you can and can not do ….. to or with your property”.
Precisely. And there is an equally simple solution to Paris Accord. See comment below.
Reid did away with the cloture rule in 2013 for all legislation, and all justice appointments save supremes. So redefining pollutants and waterways is straightforward. And litigation proof. Makes both CPP and WOTUS disappear instantly.
That has just got to be a first.
He is still in the depression stage of grieving. With luck the entire Green movement will stay there.
mean while Australia is only 17 days to summer latest weather report nsw http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/warnings/sheep.shtml
Thanks for the weather report Tango. BTW, hopefully the rain in Tasmania will save our woeful cricket team.
Trump is on the record saying he is for clean air and clean water. CO2 is not a pollutant. Bye Bye non binding agreement.
““Trump comes into office with a plan to toss out most of what President Obama achieved on energy and the environment.””
“Achieved” is defined as bringing something to a successful end. Obama hasn’t brought anything to a successful end, and if he had been successful in his endeavors, his “success” would be a disaster for the USA.
Do you all remember when Rush Limbaugh practically got run out of the country back in 2009 when he said he hoped Pres. Obama would not succeed in his aims? He was right, of course: The parts of O’s design that did pass are disasters (Obamacare, for one); and any parts that failed are cause for thanks. What are O’s “successes”? Massive immigration, unchecked, including jihadists; sanctuary cities, where US law is openly ignored; Muslim enclaves where sharia law in effect replaces US law; countless jobs lost in coal mines and related industries; the highest unemployed numbers in history (90 million plus not working; forget about the “official” unemployment figures). As for the environment: the sooner O is gone, the sooner some of the damage can be repaired. Note: No one has to be a racist to see these things.
+10
“What are O’s “successes”?”
The only success I can attribute to Obama is the Ebola situation in Africa. That was handled well.
But everything else he has done both at home and abroad has been one fiasco after another. He really is the worst president ever. I’m just waiting for what he has in store for us over the next two months.
“What are O’s “successes”?”
Well “DUH”, Obama has been extremely successful at doing what he was intent on doing if elected POTUS.
Which was, as so it appears by his actions, …… to be their bestest friend in a position of power in the US of A …….. that the Muslim religious fanatics, jihadists, terrorists, etc. could ever have hoped of having or even dreamed of having.
Me sincerely thinks that Obama’s pre-election promise to …… “Fundamentally change America“, …. was in actuality, being made to the Muslim religious fanatics, jihadists, terrorists, etc.
The 90 Million not working is false, that was disproved a long time ago. Counting retired people and kids as not working is preposterous.
Be thankful for the enemy’s incompetence.
WS, Napoleon had a saying: ‘Never interrupt the enemy when in themprocess of making a great mistake.’ Applies here and now.
There would be two things that I would give priority to . 1. Re program our younger generation who have been subject to a lifetime of indoctrination on global warming. If both sides are presented at educational institutions I know which makes more sense. The problem is that academics live in a global warming echo chamber. 2. Prosecute key leaders of the global warming movement for fraud including environmental media participants who slavishly pass on the global warming message without even a minimal amount of fact checking. These journalists should be prohibited from practicing their profession.
Parallels with McCarthyism:
My History is poor: can anyone point to what useful lessons we learnt from the scourge of McCarthyism, its fall from influence, and the factors that helped it on its way?
A lot of environmental journalists arrived where they are with help from the Society of Environmental Journalists, SEJ. The 16 foundation grants that SEJ got during 2015-2016 aren’t going to dry up. Nor do the foundations pay tax. I imagine there’s barely a single environmental journalist who’s not been through the SEJ brainwashing. Sacking them just means younger (SEJ) journalists will get jobs. SEJ protects its journalists, making sure they don’t read this. Fortunately the snowflakes will not read your post, so are protected from your hate speech.
The entire IPCCC COP21 delegation understood why the US demanded the INDC’s were voluntary, not mandatory. It was no secret Sec State Kerry had to ensure whatever was signed was not binding on the US, else he and the President would have had to submit it to the Senate for ratification. There are many on-the-record statements to exactly that from Kerry and even Obama.
The Paris COP has no mandatory binding CO2 limits, nor any mandatory Climate Aid Fund payments due from the USA.
Paris COP21 is now not worth the paper it is printed on with Trump ready to ignore it. It is a dead agreement.
They just can not bring themselves to admit that. But they will once Trump is the US President and he tells the IPCCC to get lost, probably sometime in late January.
I really don’t care what Mr. Royale of the French government thinks about the accord. Since the agreement was never ratified by the US Senate, it is nothing more than a waste of paper in the United States.
The only “Royale” of the France was the French navy: “la Royale”.
The mother of François Hollande’s children is Ségolène Royal, of “no climate change on 67P Churyumov Gerasimenko” fame.
Madame Royal, Ministre for energy, environment with an open legs portfolio