By Robert Bradley Jr. – April 13, 2022
Marlo Lewis, Jr. is a friend you want to meet and spend time with. As a Harvard University doctor, he has long been a voice in the rationality of the climate debate from his home base at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). He was always cheerful and played mandolin swing in a band, Old Town Tradition.
Lewis recently propose “Expressing Congressional Sense of the Paris Agreement“For the serious debate now that Net Zero is a fantasy. Centralized climate planning by global governments must stop. Targets for carbon dioxide should not be set for these reasons reasonable science and good match. Let the market decide with methane, a market rich in pipeline capacity and end-user growth to reduce natural gas escapes/flares.
Lewis’ draft for Republicans and Democrats is consumer- and taxpayer-friendly as follows:
While Paris Agreement is a global framework to pressure US policymakers and companies to achieve NetZero emissions by 2050;
Meanwhile, achieving NetZero by imposing a carbon tax — the most effective emission reduction policy according to many economists — would cost $4.4 trillion annually, or 11.9 percent of GDP, or 11,300 USD/person by 2050, according to a learn in Nature;
While the NetZero program requires Geopolitical riskmaking the US more dependent on Russia and OPEC for hydrocarbons and on China for energy conversion minerals used to make advanced batteries, wind turbines and solar panels;
Meanwhile, participation in the Paris Agreement makes U.S. energy policy less accountable to voters and more vulnerable to foreign leaders, multilateral officials, and non-governmental organizations. the government is not politically responsible;
Meanwhile, the Paris Agreement aims to impose legally binding reporting requirements on the parties to facilitate “name and shame“Of US policymakers who have not committed to or implemented “ambitious” emissions reduction targets;
While the United States leads in the production of abundant, affordable, reliable energy strengthen the economy, reduce cost of livingand strengthening the geopolitical security of the United States;
While rational people don’t join clubs designed to pressure, appease, and shame them into acting against their best interests and better judgment;
Meanwhile, the Paris Agreement requires a review of energy emissions reduction commitments every five years, in perpetuity, with each required revision reflecting the party’s “highest possible ambition”. ;
While the vast majority the parties to the Paris Agreement submitted the agreement to their legislatures for ratification as a treaty;
Whereas Article II, Section 2, Section 2 of the United States Constitution provides that the President “shall have the power, with the consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present consent;”
Whereas Presidents Obama and Biden have enrolled the United States in the Paris Agreement without consulting and consent of the Senate;
While the Constitution requires a higher degree of consent to make treaties than appointing Supreme Court justices, this only requires the consent of a simple majority in the Senate;
Meanwhile, the Treaty Article’s majority requirement helps ensure that U.S. treaties enjoy broad public support rather than just the support of one party or parts of the country. family;
While the Parties framed the intended Article of the Treaty to examine executive power, because “interests of a very subtle and important kind, such as those related to [the nation’s] intercourse with the rest of the world “should not be left” to the sole disposition “of a judge (Federalist 75);
Meanwhile, the Paris Agreement is a pact of costs and risks to the nation as a whole, its reliance on subsequent legislation by Congress, potential implications for state law, prior practice United States for similar agreements and other traditional elements set forth in the Department of State Procedures Circular 175;
While President Obama intends to enter Paris as an executive agreement — as if “The most ambitious climate change agreement in history“Not more interested in the Senate signed bilateral operating agreements by President George W. Bush to promote environmental education in Niger, Ethiopia and the Republic of the Congo;
Meanwhile, the Senate must independently assess whether the potential costs and risks of a particular arrangement are “significant” enough to warrant consideration under the Article II process, or else the President could evade constitutional scrutiny, as President Obama did, by unilaterally declaring a controversial deal. not a treaty: So now, maybe
Solved: It is the consciousness of Congress that:
- The Paris Agreement is a treaty that has been signed but not ratified and thus creates no legal obligations for the United States.
- The NDC notified by the United States to the United Nations Climate Secretariat is a policy proposal of the Biden administration that has no formal status under US or international law.
- Senate leaders should schedule a debate and vote on whether President Biden should submit his instrument of ratification of the Paris Agreement to the United Nations Climate Secretariat.
- If less than two-thirds of the senators present vote in favor of ratification, President Biden should notify the United Nations Climate Secretariat that the United States is not a party to the Paris Agreement and has never do like that.
Related
