GHG Daily
1/27/2016
Without ratification by the Senate, the global climate deal struck in Paris last month “has no means of enforcement, sustainability or legal significance,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) argued again this week. “President Obama can sign the Paris Agreement if he pleases. … However, he knows as well as anyone that his signature is a moot point without the Senate’s consideration. President Clinton made the same attempt in 1998 by signing the Kyoto Protocol. Clinton then failed to submit it to the Senate for advice and consent, and so his signature was set aside in 2001,” the lawmaker wrote.
The Paris Agreement was crafted in such a way that, according to the administration, it will not require Senate ratification given that in a GOP Senate such an action would be extremely unlikely. The agreement consists of a legally binding framework for the implementation of voluntary nationally set climate mitigation targets. If those targets were legally binding, the agreement would then require Senate approval.
“When it comes to the Paris agreement, the Senate’s role in this matter does not exist at President Obama’s prerogative; it is derived from the Constitution. If President Obama is truly looking for a historic achievement, he would be seeking out Senate involvement instead of attempting to find ways around it,” Inhofe in an editorial published Monday in the Washington Examiner.
Inhofe also reiterated a declaration to the international community that the president does not have the backing of Congress on the matter. “International representatives have been duly warned that promises made through sole-executive agreements only last as long as the president who made them,” Inhofe wrote.
The senator made similar statements ahead of the Paris climate negotiations late last year. These warnings fell flat in Paris, however. “We know the position that the Congress has, well at the least the position of many of the Republicans in Congress. … What matters is that that does not prevent things from moving forward because … this is a global cause,” Laurent Fabius, president of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said during the conference.
