Watch Your Wallet: Al Gore’s ‘Flexibility’ Bodes Ill For U.S. Interests at Kyoto — And Beyond

(Washington, D.C.): In his much-awaited appearance today at the Kyoto conference on the
Global Climate Control Treaty (GCCT), Vice President Al Gore announced “Open Season” on
the U.S. negotiating position. He told the delegates that “I have instructed our delegation to
show increased negotiating flexibility as long as basic principles of the U.S. position are
preserved.” By so doing, the Veep effectively invited intensified pressure on the American team
from environmentalists unhappy with the relatively modest greenhouse gas emissions-reduction
proposal announced by President Clinton last month.

Whether the Clinton-Gore Administration will, in fact, agree to make cuts in energy consumption
beyond those involved in bringing carbon-dioxide emissions down to 1990 levels by 2008-2012,
either at Kyoto or in a further round of negotiations that now seem all but inevitable, remains to
be seen. What is certain, however, is that — having telegraphed its willingness in principle to do
so — the United States will be hard pressed to resist demands that will make the treaty even
more unacceptable to the Senate than it is at present.

This prospect reinforces concerns expressed in a Symposium sponsored by the Center’s William J.
Casey Institute on 19 November and described in a summary released last week:

“Several participants expressed concern…that the President might try to finesse the
Senate, denying it the role of check-and-balance on executive action
contemplated by the Framers. As one put it: ‘…The proposals [President Clinton]
made last month can largely be implemented by executive actions without submitting a
treaty for ratification. For instance, the President can raise fuel efficiency standards by
executive order. Other parts of his package will require only piecemeal congressional
approval.'”⁽¹⁾

The Casey Institute believes that under all circumstances the Senate must demand that any
treaty coming out of the Kyoto meeting be promptly submitted for its advice and consent. The
stakes in terms of such a treaty’s negative consequences for the interests and liberties of ordinary
Americans and for their country’s economy, sovereignty and security⁽²⁾ are simply too high to
permit the Clinton Administration to foist such costs in either of two ways: 1) through unilateral
executive action or 2) by deferring a ratification debate on the treaty while obliging the United
States under international law to observe its limitations and other requirements.

The Bottom Line

Imposing such burdens through either of these techniques is all the more unacceptable, not to say
absurd, in light of the dubious scientific basis for claims about “Global Warming.” The
attached syndicated column by Charles Krauthammer, one of the Nation’s most brilliant minds,
eloquently dissects the latest manifestation of the phenomenon Adolf Hitler understood as well as
today’s apocalyptic environmentalists: “The great masses of the people…will more easily fall
victim to a big lie than a small one.”

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1. For more on this important Symposium, see the Casey Institute’s Press Releases entitled Casey
Institute Symposium Offers ‘Global Warning’ About Global Climate Change Treaty (No. 97-R 174, 20 November 1997) and Casey Institute Symposium on Global Warming Suggests Case
For — And Costs Of — Kyoto Treaty Are Unsustainable (No. 97-R 188, 5 December 1997) and
its attached Symposium Summary.

2. See the Casey Institute’s Perspective entitled Effects of Clinton’s Global Warming Treaty on
U.S. Security Gives New Meaning to the Term ‘Environmental Impact’ (No. 97-C 149, 6
October 1997).