Obama takes 1st step in 'handcuffing' successor

'What he's seeking to do is bind the next president'

While the Obama administration trumpets a “historic” agreement on carbon emissions with China, a leading climate expert says the U.S. economy would have to collapse to comply with the terms of the deal, but President Obama’s main goal is to make it difficult for the next president, Congress and the courts to strike down his many environmental regulations.
While in China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit, Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping came to an agreement that would have the U.S. reducing its carbon emissions between 26 and 28 percent from 2005 levels. The Chinese, meanwhile, vowed to try to peak their emissions by 2030 and attempt to get 20 percent of their energy from “zero carbon emission sources” by that same time.


As the deal was announced, Obama’s Twitter account stated: “This is huge: The United States and China have just agreed on an ambitious new joint plan to cut carbon pollution.”
Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Horner said the deal means business as usual for China but would force the U.S. to make draconian changes over the next decade.
“It promised massive reductions, which nobody knows how you could get to, barring serious economic collapse on the part of the U.S. This is even after the hydro-fracking boom. Even assuming you kill coal dead, nobody knows how you get to where he’s talking about, which of course will be someone else’s problem,” Horner said. “You sort of want to be on the other side of the negotiating table from people who view things like this as victories. It was hardly that.”

Horner believes handcuffing the next president is Obama’s real motivation here.“What he’s seeking to do is bind the next president and the next president’s (Environmental Protection Agency), this Congress and the courts to say, ‘You know what? You really can’t undo my EPA rules. They’re now part of something larger. They’re embedded in a promise to the world, and I’d like the courts to recognize that,’” Horner explained. “While it sounds crazy, it’s called customary international law, and there’s always a chance.” 

Previous attempts to commit the U.S. to reduced carbon were soundly rejected in the 1990s, when the Clinton administration embraced the Kyoto Accords, but the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a non-binding vote warning Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore that any such deal would be dead on arrival.

The Constitution states the Senate must ratify any proposed treaties with a two-thirds majority. Horner said Obama’s plan is to declare that this agreement is not a treaty and is not subject to Senate approval.
“This is probably the most intriguing and disturbing aspect of this,” he said. “For more than 20 years, the executive, no matter what party he’s from, and the Senate have recognized that this is part of the treaty process. It needs to be part of the treaty process. We have a system, and this goes through it. Now that the treaty process makes it clear that they never would ratify such an agreement, the president said, ‘This isn’t a treaty. Next year won’t be a treaty, simply because I’m calling it not a treaty.’”
Horner added, “What they’re doing is side-stepping the system. He’s side-stepped it without legislation to regulate, and now he’s hoping to get a treaty by calling it not a treaty to avoid a loss in the Senate. It’s very problematic.”
However, just because Obama tries to contend it’s not an actual treaty doesn’t mean that’s how the Senate must see it.
“It’s a non-binding sense of the Senate resolution (he can’t veto it) in response to a non-binding non-treaty, saying, ‘You’re freelancing in a legally meaningless way. You’re not speaking for the United States, and no court or other country should take this as an expression of U.S. intent.’ That is the equivalent of the Senate saying, ‘No, it is a treaty,’” Horner said.
If that were to happen, Horner is convinced the Senate would have much stronger legal ground than the president.
“This desire to say, ‘Look, we’ve embedded our rules in promises to the rest of the world’ falls apart because the Senate is saying, ‘In fact, you didn’t. You are not speaking on behalf of the United States. The Senate has a role in speaking on behalf of the United States under advice and consent. We’re saying you’re speaking without our word. You don’t want our advice; you certainly don’t get our consent,’” he said.
This strategy doesn’t surprise Horner. Like the president’s unilateral approach to immigration policy, he said Obama is acting alone on climate policy – despite the clear opposition of the American people.
“This was an issue in a lot of campaigns,” he said. “[Billionaire environmental activist] Tom Steyer organized $85 million, which is almost teachers’ union money of $100 million to make climate what they called the winning issue this year. Those candidates all lost. Two survived. No candidate embraced the issue. They were doing this so the candidates wouldn’t have to, and the voters rejected it.”

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