No Implementation of Treaties Without Ratification, Period
(Washington, D.C.): At a press conference today, Vice President Gore is
expected to rail
against an amendment offered by Rep. Joseph Knollenberg (R-MI) aimed at
upholding one of
the most fundamental principles of America’s constitutional form of government: No
treaty shall
bind the United States unless and until its ratification has been approved by two-thirds of
the Senate. The problem is that Al Gore’s Kyoto Protocol to the Global Climate
Change Treaty
has nothing like that level of support. Consequently, the Clinton-Gore Administration
is doing
what it has chosen increasingly to do in area after area: Contemptuously ignore
Congress by,
among other things, governing by decree and implementing treaties without ratification —
indeed without in some cases even sending them to the Senate for its advice and
consent.
What, Me Worry About the Constitution?
In recent days, the Clinton Administration has made this policy explicit with its emphasis on
accomplishing its legislative agenda through executive action, if necessary. “Stroke of the pen.
Law of the land,” according to White House aide Paul Begala. Remarkably, Congress has yet to
challenge this practice, which threatens to strip it of its role under the Constitution for enacting
the laws of the land.
What Congress has started to do, however — thanks to Rep. Knollenberg and his
colleagues on
the House Appropriations Committee — is challenge the Administration’s effort to implement the
Kyoto Protocol without the requisite Senate approval. They have included language in the
FY1999 VA-HUD Appropriations bill that would prohibit “funds appropriated by this
Act
[from being] used to develop, propose, or issue rules, regulations, decrees, or orders for the
purpose of implementation, or in contemplation of implementation, of the Kyoto
Protocol…which has not been submitted to the Senate for advice and consent to
ratification…and which has not entered into force pursuant to article 25 of such Protocol.”
As the Appropriations Committee report on this legislation makes clear:
- “This language was included in part because of sincere concerns that, lacking
support for Senate ratification, the Administration is attempting to force binding
greenhouse gas emissions reductions through ‘backdoor’ regulatory action and
through greatly expanding existing programs. The bill language is intended to
prohibit the expenditure of funds for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in any
manner until it has been ratified by the Senate.”
EPA’s Covert Implementation Program
Particularly pernicious is the ongoing and planned use being made of federal agency
personnel and resources — notably the roughly $10 billion the Administration is seeking
for
“scientific research” and other activities related to “global warming.” With respect to the former,
the Committee noted:
- “…The [EPA], the Council on Environmental Quality, among others, may be engaging
in activity that is tantamount to lobbying in an effort to build public support for
implementation of the Protocol. While the Committee recognizes the importance of
educating the public on environmental issues, there can be a very fine line between
education and advocacy of an issue. The Agency and the CEQ are thus directed to
refrain from conducting educational outreach or informational seminars on policies
underlying the Kyoto Protocol until or unless the Protocol is ratified by the Senate.”
Vice President Gore is expected to inveigh against this perfectly reasonable injunction
on the
grounds that it constitutes a “gag order.” In fact, the use being made by the federal EPA
of
regional seminars with state and local counterparts about implementing the Kyoto-mandated
reductions in greenhouse gasses has clearly gone beyond informational
exchanges to constitute proselytizing and implementation of the unratified and unratifiable
treaty.
No less worrisome is the likelihood that vast sums will be used by the Clinton Administration
in
the name of research into global warming effectively to “buy” scientific support for its otherwise
untenable theories about climate change — and the attendant need for draconian changes in the
Nation’s economic activity, quality of life and perhaps even its defense.
We’re Not Making This Up
The need for amendments like that initiated by Rep. Knollenberg is underscored by evidence
which the Casey Institute has obtained that the Clinton-Gore Administration is
implementing
yet another treaty — one bearing directly on national security — that it has also chosen
to
date not to submit to the Senate: New agreements governing the kind of missile defenses
the United States can develop and deploy and the foreign governments (Russia,
Kazakhstan,
Ukraine and Belarus(2)) whose approval will have
to be secured if it is to proceed with such
deployments.
On 1 May 1998, Secretary of Defense William Cohen issued a memorandum instructing his
Department to begin implementing the new missile defense treaties signed in September 1997 in
New York. The Casey Institute has learned that subsequently, John Douglass, the outgoing
Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition issued a
corresponding order to his subordinates which — if allowed by the Congress to stand — will have
the effect of seriously constraining the missile defense system that holds great promise for
providing near-term, effective and highly affordable protection for both the American people and
their forces and allies overseas: the Navy’s AEGIS option.
have been sent by Douglass’s counterparts in the Army and Air Force.
The Bottom Line
Vice President Gore’s tub-thumping today notwithstanding, the Congress is perfectly
within its
rights to insist that treaties that have not been ratified not be implemented. If this does
not
suit the Clinton-Gore Administration, they can always submit their treaties and permit
the Senate
to work its will upon them. Failing that, they have no grounds for objecting to the Knollenberg
amendment — and similar measures that should be implemented on other legislation to protect
against the effects of implementation without ratification. No grounds, that is, but an
extra-constitutional usurpation of authority that cannot and must not be tolerated in this
Republic.
The question of the Administration’s effort to implement the Kyoto treaty absent the Senate’s
approval and formal ratification of it would be a fitting focus for tomorrow’s hearing before the
National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs subcommittee of the
House Government Reform and Oversight Committee entitled “The Kyoto Protocol: Is
the
Clinton-Gore Administration Selling Out Americans?”
– 30 –
1. See, for example, The Plot Thickens: Stuart
Eizenstat Blows More Smoke in House Hearing
About Kyoto’s Impact on U.S. National Security (No.
98-C 83, 14 May 1998), Is the
Administration Lying to the Senate About Kyoto’s Adverse Impact on National Security — Or
Just Kidding Itself? (No. 98-C 70, 23 April 1998),
Effects of Clinton’s Global Warming Treaty
on U.S. Security Gives New Meaning to the Term ‘Environmental Impact’ (
October 1997) and As Clinton Pushes for Radical Approach to Global Warming,
Will Impacts
on U.S. National Security Be Frozen Out? (No.
97-C 147, 2 October 1997).
2. Belarus is, of course, the authoritarian-ruled country currently
exhibiting its contempt for the
United States and other Western powers by evicting the American ambassador from his residence
and confiscating his furniture.
3. See Irate Senate Supporters of the ‘AEGIS Option’
for Missile Defense Demand Release of
Favorable Pentagon Study (No. 98-D 119, 25 June
1998), Words to Live By: Speaker Gingrich
Asks Clinton to Use Speech to the Nation to Begin Protecting It From Missile
Attack (No. 98-D 15, 23 January 1998) and
Validation of the Aegis Option: Successful Test Is First Step From
Promising Concept to Global Anti-Missile Capability (
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