The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) recently published a position paper, titled "The Paris Climate Agreement Is a Treaty Requiring Senate Review," which asserts that the COP-21 Paris climate-change agreement is a treaty that requires Senate approval.
The CEI said it believes President Obama is doing an end-run around the Senate to approve the agreement, which he plans to sign unilaterally on April 22.
"It is critical that Congress challenge Obama’s claim that the promises he made in Paris are commitments of the United States,” CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis, who wrote the position paper, said. “Obama’s promises become commitments only if ratified by the Senate because the Paris pact ... is a treaty.”
Lewis is calling on Congress to issue a Sense of Congress resolution declaring the Paris agreement a treaty, and that under the Constitution's Article II, Section 2, the U.S. is not required to accept the terms of any treaty unless the Senate ratifies it.
“President Obama has dodged the treaty process before when he knows his agenda won’t pass," Lewis said. "He did it with the Iran deal, and he’s doing it with this climate agreement."
Lewis said that without Senate ratification, any promises Obama made in Paris to the United Nations were simply administration proposals, not official U.S. policy.
To read the entire position paper, go to https://cei.org/content/paris-climate-agreement-treaty-requiring-senate-review.
Alerts Sign-up