President Obama’s mission to save the planet from global warming could end up trampling on the U.S. Constitution, critics say.
FoxNews.com
December 16, 2009
President Obama’s mission to save the planet from global warming could end up trampling on the U.S. Constitution, critics say.
When Obama arrives in Copenhagen Friday, he is hoping to cut a deal on a new global-warming agreement. Even though the conference is not likely to produce a legally binding deal, critics say if the president signs an international climate treaty pledging reductions in carbon emissions, he will violate the Constitution.
“President Obama cannot bind the American people to job killing international agreements on climate change without the advice and consent of the United States Senate,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote Wednesday at the conservative Web site Human Events.
The Constitution states that the president cannot sign treaties without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate.
But with climate change legislation stuck in the Senate after the House passed its version earlier this year, the White House is flirting with the possibility of taking action without Congress…
…But Obama has received one warning from a member of his party on signing a treaty. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., told Obama in a letter late last month not to commit the U.S. to any binding climate standards in Copenhagen without congressional support.
“As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country,” he wrote…
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