A 10-year-old girl asked Secretary of State John Kerry how many treaties he’s signed during his tenure as America’s top diplomat, to which Kerry replied he’s never actually signed a treaty, just a non-binding “political agreement” about global warming.
Here’s the exchange Kerry had with Mimi, the 10-year-old, at the Department of State’s “Take Your Child To Work Day” event Thursday.
QUESTION: Hi. I’m Mimi and I’m 10.
SECRETARY KERRY: Ten.
QUESTION: I was wondering how many treaties you’ve signed, or if any.
SECRETARY KERRY: Treaties. Well, I actually – I actually don’t – I’ve signed one non-treaty, which was the climate change agreement that we just signed in New York. It’s not a treaty, it’s an agreement – a political agreement. And I initialed or signed the agreement on the Iran nuclear agreement when we did that in Vienna.
Kerry’s talking about the United Nations agreement he signed on Earth Day, which commits the U.S. to cutting carbon dioxide emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. That agreement, hashed out in Paris last year, is being used by the Obama administration to defend against legal challenges to federal regulations on power plants.
But Kerry confirmed the U.N. deal is not a legally-binding treaty, so it doesn’t have to be honored by the next president. It wasn’t long ago that Kerry was calling the U.N. agreement legally-binding — or at least parts of it.
In fact, the Obama administration is specifically avoiding use of the word “treaty” to describe any potential deal made in Paris. A “treaty” needs Senate approval, and that’s not going to happen with Republicans in control of Congress.
Some senators have called for Kerry to bring the agreement before Congress for approval, but that’s less likely now that the House and Senate have voted to repeal the Environmental Protection agency’s power plant rules — the lynchpin of Obama’s domestic climate agenda.
The U.S. Constitution requires any treaties have the “advice and consent of the Senate … provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
“The theory is that, so long as the emission-reduction targets are only politically binding, the president would be under no obligation to submit them to the Senate,” Utah Republican Sen. [crscore]Mike Lee[/crscore] said in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation last year.
“The hybrid-agreement theory is clever, to be sure,” Lee said. “But it flatly contradicts the understanding of the Framework Convention that has been universally accepted since its ratification in 1992.”
“Targets and timetables of any legal character have always been understood to require the Senate’s advice and consent,” Lee said.
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