For Immediate Release, December 8, 2009
Contact: Kevin Bundy, (415) 436-9682 x 313, kbundy@biologicaldiversity.org
Report: President Obama Has the Clear Legal Authority to Make a Binding Commitment for Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Copenhagen Without Waiting for Congress
COPENHAGEN— The Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute released a report today demonstrating that President Obama has clear legal authority to commit the United States to reducing greenhouse gas pollution. The report, titled Yes, He Can: President Obama’s Power to Make an International Climate Commitment Without Waiting for Congress, concludes that the President need not wait for Congress to act before taking strong action to reduce U.S. emissions.
The report will be released in Copenhagen this evening at a side event hosted by Greenpeace.
Where: Niels Bohr
When: Tuesday, 8 December, 21:00-21:30 (Copenhagen time)
“President Obama’s hands are not tied by Congress’s lack of action or the grossly inadequate cap-and-trade bills currently under debate. President Obama can lead, rather than follow, by using his power under the Clean Air Act and other laws to achieve deep and rapid greenhouse emissions reductions from major polluters,” said Center attorney Kevin Bundy, the report’s lead author. “Obama can use his authority to make a binding agreement in Copenhagen without additional action from Congress. The Constitution and existing domestic environmental laws give President Obama all the power he needs to join with other nations in making a real commitment to solve the climate crisis.”
The report cites prominent legal scholars and U.S. Supreme Court opinions recognizing the President’s broad power to make binding international agreements that do not need to be ratified by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate. For example, the President could enter into either a “congressional-executive” agreement under authority already granted by Congress, or a “sole executive” agreement based on his own constitutional powers.
The report also details the President’s broad authority to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions under existing environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act. The release of the report follows yesterday’s important finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. That decision will facilitate comprehensive measures to curb greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act.
“The President has the ultimate responsibility for enforcing domestic environmental laws, and those laws give him a wide variety of options for reducing greenhouse gas pollution,” said Bundy. “All he has to do is promise the international community to use the authority he already has.”
“It simply isn’t true that President Obama cannot make a commitment in Copenhagen. Yes, he can, and if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, he must.”
So the EPA would enforce Obama’s treaty? I knew about this. What do you think would happen if he does this? There are already talks of EPA not having any right to regulate anyone regardless of the clean air act.
Remember the billions Obama gave to IMF funding that required congress okay, then later Obama admin said they did not need approval and it was dropped? Obama cares nothing for law.
Obama makes my skin crawl.
Did you see this, Ernest?
COP15 Proposals – summary from AEP simulcast from Copenhagen earlier today
(Americans for Prosperity) http://www.americansforprosperity.org/national-site
COP15 Proposals:
- Western Economic Tax of 2% of GDP
- Removal of IP/Patent Rights for New Technologies in Clean Technology
- US Constitution is “only paper”, so “Copenhagen Treaty” as been renamed an “ Executive Agreement” so Obama can sign it shortly
- Words “worldwide government” have been dropped from the “Treaty”; but there are 700 new global gov entities created
- The “Treaty” contains extensive, significant details (currently not being reported) on establishment of worldwide government
- Extensive political agenda of the COP15 meeting is being largely unreported
This article is a bunch of Crock.
It will be so easy to challenge this in court and it wil never pass Senate muster.