We’ll Always Have Paris if U.S. Doesn’t Act

Regarding Rep. Kevin Cramer’s “Remake the Paris Deal to Promote U.S. Energy” (op-ed, May 8): The agreement contains no provision for renegotiation. Indeed, Paris’s most insidious feature is that its terms do away with the need to take one’s vaunted “seat at the table” ever again. Unless President Trump keeps his promise to cancel U.S. participation in what is by its terms, custom and practice a treaty, we will always have Paris. It demands quinquennial, ever more stringent promises, in perpetuity.

The window for restoring our constitutional treaty process is closing. President Trump should reaffirm to our negotiating partners that we have a constitutional process, we will follow it and submit the Paris Agreement to the Senate for ratification, as the Constitution requires. This will tell the world there is no margin in collaborating with a future executive to circumvent it.

Mr. Cramer states that by staying in Paris the U.S. will be able to defend American interests and the use of fossil fuels. He clearly has never attended one of the annual U.N. global-warming conferences, which are massive, fortnight-long diatribes against fossil fuels, especially coal. Many corporations and industry trade associations do attend, but nearly all are from the renewable-energy sector and stand to profit from the Paris treaty, the purpose of which is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels completely, first in the developed countries.

We agree with Mr. Cramer that: “Neither America nor the world can afford a European energy future, with skyrocketing prices.” That’s why President Trump must keep his campaign promise.

Chris Horner and Myron Ebell

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Washington

Originally posted to The Wall Street Journal.