Obama’s Economic Surrender to China

Human Events quotes CEI's Cristopher Horner on President Obama's environmental treaty with China at APEC: 

"Of course, since we’ve long trespassed against the boundaries of power our Constitution set on the presidency, it’s possible Obama will impose a good deal of his fake “treaty” through executive orders and regulatory fiat, rather than presenting anything to Congress for ratification. Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute warns that strong action will be needed to protect the American economy from this assault:

This deal is the latest move by the president to circumvent congressional approval, in this case by using a ‘politically binding’ promise to others that he hopes make his EPA’s rules untouchable here at home.

The intention here is to effectively embed his proposed and highly vulnerable EPA rules through soft commitments like this (and the Paris agreement next year repeating it), despite not being legally binding. Under what is known as customary international law, countries are obligated to keep promises that are repeated so often or so well understood, or at minimum not violate their ‘object and purpose’.

However, for President Obama to meaningfully promise to China, or anyone else, that the US will curb our carbon emissions requires Senate ‘advice and consent’ – ratification under the Constitution. This move is instead a clear attempt to pressure U.S. lawmakers, courts or the next president’s EPA to leave Obama’s greenhouse gas rules alone. He seeks to use promises to others to seal the deal on his domestic war on coal. The Senate should vote in January to instruct the world, our courts and anyone else who is interested that this represents no more than legally meaningless freelancing."