Trump Plans to Formally Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Accord….Again
There are also some reports that Trump is planning to relocate the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that in 2019, Trump officially notified the United Nations that the US would formally withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. This is the first formal step in a one-year process.
According to news reports, the President/President-Elect will do so…again.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has prepared executive orders and proclamations that would withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement and open up western lands for drilling and mining, according to a report.
Trump’s energy and environment transition team – tasked with drafting these actions – includes his former Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Trump, 78, pulled the US out of the Paris accord early in his first term, arguing that it was ineffective because it allows countries to voluntarily restrain their own pollution and seeks to hold the US and other industrialized countries to a higher standard.
Biden re-entered the agreement shortly after assuming office.
There are some reports that Trump is planning to relocate the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr. Trump also intends to install an “energy czar” in the White House to coordinate policies across agencies in an effort to cut regulations and make it easier to ramp up production of oil, gas and coal.
Some people on the transition team are discussing moving the E.P.A. headquarters and its 7,000 workers out of Washington, D.C., according to multiple people involved in the discussions who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about the transition.
I have thoughts:
To the banks of the Animas River, as it destructive decision-making by its bureaucrats led directly to this disaster. pic.twitter.com/sUmcyRnr9V
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 10, 2024
The mainstream media is filled with reports about the “feeling of dread” among bureaucrats in the EPA and other federal agencies.
“I would say there is a general feeling of dread among everyone,” one Energy Department employee told CNN.
…Now they face another four years of Trump – a term that by his own account will be worse for the government workforce than his first.
“We are absolutely having conversations among ourselves about whether we can stomach a round two,” an employee at the Environmental Protection Agency said.
I think many Americans are feeling joyful that bureaucrats are unhappy at this point. But, I digress.
Meanwhile, Team Biden is racing for time, trying to prevent the reversals of their inane polices….that essentially reversed all sound energy and economic policies Trump enacted in the first place.
Biden administration aides are racing to award hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and finalize environmental regulations in an effort to lock in President Biden’s climate agenda before Donald J. Trump enters the White House, said John Podesta, the president’s senior adviser on clean energy.
Mr. Podesta, who also serves as Mr. Biden’s top climate diplomat, departs Sunday for United Nations-led climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan. He said will try to reassure America’s allies that the clean energy transition is unstoppable and that U.S. emissions are poised to drop even with a president who denies the science of climate change.
Brace yourself for “experts” to be trotted out denouncing Trump and his advisors as being “anti-science”. The trouble is that this time, we have experienced societal-level devastation based on “science” offered by experts…and major sources of new media (X.com and podcasts) offer real platforms of free speech in which all views and policies can be discussed and debated.
As an added bonus, our new science priorities might look a little different going forward.
Optimus the humanoid robot 🤖 will be the first astronaut to Mars on a Starship this decade ?
It is not science fiction anymore ,it is possible 🚀 @SpaceX @elonmusk #Trump @NASA https://t.co/QFWiWmNYMx
— Marios Karatzias (@MariosKaratzias) November 8, 2024
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
We have never formally been in the Paris Global Warming Treaty. It required Senate ratification and it was never presented to the Senate. Most of the actions done “in compliance” with the Paris treaty have been illegal.
Actually, because the USA is signatory to the International Treaty agreement called the Vienna Accords, international agreements can become international law by being accepted by the head of state.
If the President of the United States agrees to an international treaty it is law until it is rejected by a subsequent President of the US.
And yes, it is not US law until ratified by the Senate.
Fine. They’re international law. That the US is not bound to. We’ve got this little thing called the Constitution that says what we’re bound to- and agreements signed by the President but not ratified by Congress aren’t among them.
Uh .. no. No treaty can supplant the US Constitution.
One more thing:
There is no such thing as “international law”.
“Law” – true law, cannot exist without bodies to create it, mechanisms to enforce it, and judges to decide about it. These weird things that people like to call “international law” have none of the above. NONE. They are not “law” in any way, shape, or form. They are “wishes”, at best.
There are treaties between nations and understandings between nations. That is it, though. Nothing more.
There is something called “international law”, but it is customary law, not binding law. “International law” consists of rules that we ought to keep, and make a strong habit of keeping, unless it’s really really important.
A fan of Eugene Kontorovich? I am. The guy is terrific.
Dave: Yes, he is.
“international law” is as much law as “peanut butter” is butter.
Not true. International law is genuine law, but it’s not the same kind as national law. It’s customary law, and it’s binding unless a country decides that it’s really really important to break it.
There’s no international government to legislate it, nor international police to enforce it, but if you break it you’re likely to piss off other countries who may decide to impose penalties on you. This means the bigger and stronger you are the more you can get away with.
According to Eugene Kontorovich who specializes in international law, it’s “treaty and custom.” Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason’s Antonin Scalia School of Law. Author of many articles on international law, I regard him as a heavy hitter on this subject.
If you mean the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the USA is not a party, but it regards much of its provisions as already part of customary international law.
No, they haven’t. They were all within the president’s authority, so he was entitled to take them regardless of whether there was a legal treaty.
The notion that every time the president makes an agreement with a foreign country he must submit it to the senate as a treaty, and if he doesn’t, or if he does and fewer than 2/3 of senators consent to it, then he is prohibited from complying with it, is just wrong.
A president, like anyone else, has the inherent right to make agreements with anyone he likes, including foreign countries. Such agreements are morally binding on him personally, and may even be considered “binding” on the USA under customary international law, but they form no part of the laws of the United States, and cannot be enforced in US courts. Since they have no legal status, they obviously can’t provide the president with any more authority than he already has.
The only time the president has to submit an agreement to the senate as a treaty (or to Congress as legislation), is if it requires him to do something that he has no legal authority to do. If he needs extra powers in order to carry out his obligations under it, then he must get that authority from Congress, which he can do in one of two ways: He can submit the agreement to the senate as a treaty, or he can submit legislation to both houses. Since treaties and statutes rank equally, either way is valid, and which way a president goes depends on where he thinks he’ll get the numbers.
A treaty is really just a way of passing a law with just the president and the senate, and bypassing the house. But you need two thirds of the senate. If the president thinks that’s too difficult, but he thinks he can get a majority in both houses, then it’s just like any other statute.
Also, once a statute is passed the president can’t just abrogate it. He can abrogate the agreement it enforces, but not the enabling statute. However a treaty ratified by the senate but not passed by the house, although it ranks equal with statutes, can be abrogated unilaterally by the president.
One could say that Biden volunteered to non-binding adherence.
A president, like anyone else, has the inherent right to make agreements with anyone he likes, including foreign countries.
Sorry, but no, Milhouse. Because he is the chief executive of the United States, any agreement with another country (or international bodies) that obligates us to act in any particular way would fall under the “treaty” category. He doesn’t get to do what any old citizen can do in this case, because he’s acting as the Chief Executive.
Sure, he can make backroom deals. He can tell Chief Poobah that he will ensure something goes their way, especially if Chief Poobah does X, Y, and Z. But it doesn’t obligate us, as a nation, in any way. Yep, the President’s political clout is on the line. So what.
The problem is that all those things used to require a treaty. But now that a certain group of elites is running things, they’re all willing to just sign documents and wink and nod because they’re really just – in their eyes – a global, unelected leadership for all of us and have the authority to do whatever they deem is best. And we need to kill that idea.
GWB, a president can make agreements with anyone he likes. Unless approved by the senate as a treaty, such an agreement doesn’t bind the USA under US law. It may morally bind the president who signed it. It may bind the USA under customary international law. But that’s it.
“binding” on the USA under customary international law
No, Milhouse. This is in direct contravention of the sovereignty of the United States. Ain’t NOBODY can tell us how to do what we do without either our agreeing to it or someone else in the world beating us militarily and forcing us to do it.
At least, that’s how the Founders saw it.
The founders recognized and respected the law of nations. They also understood that this was customary law, not the same as a law enforceable in court. For a good enough reason it can be broken.
There are lots of office buildings for sale REALLY CHEAP in downtown Baltimore. Buy some buildings with no parking (or repurpose the parking lots) and make them all park on the streets, too.
Further, anyone who calls CO2 “pollution” needs to be slapped silly. Every single time until they stop. CO2 is NOT “pollution”.
Why not Missouri? These agencies need to be spread throughout the country and the power concentration in the beltway needs to be diluted.
My vote is for North Shore Alaska.
Buffalo Breath, Nebraska.
A few weeks ago, I drove through a place called “Wauconda.” Not a black person in sight. No evidence of advanced technology.
True story.
I vote for Bumf**k Egypt.
CO² is pretty essential for life. When broken down it results in coal and water. It becomes a problem when one Oxygen atom is taken away.
CO2 is plant food. These haters want to kill not only humanity but the rest of life on earth.
And most plants on earth were slowly being suffocated by the atmosphere’s declining CO2 level. There is a family of plants (C4 family – I believe it includes the grasses) that has evolved to better tolerate low CO2. Low CO2 has been the exception during most of earth’s history, C4 plants have evolved only relatively recent in response.
Baltimore is DC – at least that’s what the airport says.
But it’s even more dangerous and much less prestigious.
Yeah … I would love to move them out to a desert or trash dump somewhere … but in a crime-ridden inner city, all on their own … that works for me, too.
East Palestine Ohio?
I’d second that
Newark NJ
Parking?! Make them all take public transport.
Make them all walk.
Make them see what a “15-minute city” lifestyle looks like when it’s Baltimore.
Detroit would be a great city for thee EPA and buildings are almost free. Large warehouses can be filled with desks.
I would recommend that this agreement be submitted to the Senate for confirmation. It will not pass and Trump can demonstrate democracy in action. Also the rejection by the Senate will be an obstacle for any future administration that wants to adopt any climate agreement.
No, it won’t. When the senate fails to ratify a proposed treaty, that has no legal effect. It just means the laws of the USA stay exactly the same as they were.
It’s the same as when Congress fails to pass a bill. The law stays the same as it was. Anything legal before the new bill failed remains legal; anything illegal before remains illegal. So if you know it’s not going to pass there’s no point in submitting it. All the more so if you don’t want it to pass.
And just as failure to pass a bill does nothing to prevent another attempt, so too with a proposed treaty.
But it DOES put a stake in the ground as to that requirement.
Yes, you have to submit for ratification for it to have any hold on the US. And we rejected it when it was tried before, so keep that in mind. (To put it in classical mafia terms: “Nice sinecure you have here, Senator. Hate to see anything … happen to it.”)
Better and better!
Looks like Trump is going to have to undo everything that Biden did that undid everything Trump did in his first term
Hopefully more.withdrawals from more international agreements both formal and informal will follow. Following Washington’s dictum about avoiding entangling alliances seems particularly apt today.
Particularly withdrawing from any agreement which isn’t a ratified treaty.
Let’s get legislation this time.
ISTR “emissions” dropped faster during Trump’s first term than the Paris Suicide Pact required, because of the use of more natural gas.
I will never understand the logic to pass laws in this country that will prevent pollution and at the same time make it economically impossible to conduct industrial processes. Without us being able to be industrious, we pay other countries to pollute our earth so we can obtain those products.
These environmental treaties are typical “screw us” actions. Atvkeastbonevof them we, despite us withdrawing from, we still met or exceeded the targets but all the signatories didn’t.
It’s like the NATO treaties, we are the only signatory to pull our weight, but everyone else expects us to cover their noncompliance. The Germans don’t even spend half what they agreed to, and only a third of their heavy equipment like promised tanks are combat capable. And the Dutch soldiers all get weekends off.
If there’s one thing Trump can spot, it’s a bad deal.
Not agreeing to environmental treaties that hurt us without achieving the intended results, not agreeing to subsidize protecting other nations that can’t be bothered to protect themselves, not agreeing to trade agreements that hollow out our economy while growing that of competing nations, all of that you can expect Trump to do.
Especially when those intended results are undesirable, and we should want them not to be achieved.
My preferred location for the EPA is Nome, Alaska.
BLM should be someplace out west, (Idaho? Utah?) BIA, if it’s worth keeping, should be next to one of the reservations so they have to see the disasters their policies produce on a daily basis. If nothing else, think how much money would be saved on COLAs.
Ed should be disbanded.
My vote would be the Denver Federal Center. Already a big USDI site, with a BLM presence. Plenty of federal buildings that can be refurbished, and set in the sort of grass environment that BLM primarily manages. It was a major ammunition manufacturing site during WW II, and still has bunkers peppering the landscape that haven’t all been cleaned out yet. Most of a section of federally owned, and fenced land, just waiting to be repurposed.
One big problem though is that while everyone else has to show IDs to get on the place, the residentially challenged (corporate speak for homeless bums) have been allowed to set up encampments there. Maybe even encouraged. It’s federal land, and the Dems have been in charge of it for almost 4 years. Talking to my insurance agent yesterday, and they were in offices just west of there. It was a nice office area, with some good restaurants. But their building management couldn’t keep the homeless out over weekends, which they considered constructive eviction, esp since they needed privacy for their clients’ (including HIPAA) information. They take over office buildings on the weekends, getting them out of esp the winter weather.
The BLM tended to get the leftover land. If it is federal land, and no other agency grabbed it up. The Forest Service got the forested land. DOD got a large chunk of NV for the nuclear test site, Area 51, and huge (larger than some states) training sites. BLM land, for the most part, wasn’t suitable for farming, often due to being too arid, and thus wasn’t economic to homestead. Huge swatches of BLM land along the western Great Plains, from NM, up through CO, WY, to MT. Also NV, UT, AZ, S ID, etc. Alaska, of course. It’s mostly useful for grazing, mineral extraction, etc. And now solar panels (think of the Clyde Bundy story). Which maybe the downside to the Denver Federal Center – it’s maybe 10 minutes away from NREL. ON the flip side, Denver easily has the best airport in a state having a lot of BLM land, and driving the long distances involved covering their land is very often impractical.
My preferred location for them would be on the banks of the River Styx
No! They’d make the ferry service illegal because it pollutes the river, or something. Then we couldn’t get all the Dems across to where they can no longer do us any harm!
You’re not aiming far enough west. I’m thinking more like Kiska Island.
Do this AND drill baby, drill!!
Not only will that bring the cost of energy down in America BUT with other sources of oil other than from the Middle East and supplanting those cut off from Russia and Iran means the cost of energy everywhere will drop.
Good, it’s a stupid agreement anyhow. No one in their right mind kneecaps their own economy in order to prop up people who couldn’t build an economy and can’t maintain an economy on their own.
If the Artemis program refocuses on Mars it’ll need a name change.
The US has already exceeded the targets anyway
My first choice for where to locate EPA: the dark side of the moon. But that would take too long, so my next choice is Taft California. Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) used to send those in disfavor with the company to Taft.
Yeah!!!!
The government has avoided applying the National Environmental Policy Act to the effects of immigration. Now a recent court case might change all that. CIS has sued the Biden administration on behalf of Texas ranchers. Now we will see if the federal government changes its position once Trump takes office.
Trump needs to fire everyone in the Federal Government who is involved in the Global Warming hoax.
Then there’d be almost no one left!
…
…
I’m okay with this.
He needs to make an official statement that because it was never submitted for ratification to the Senate, it can NOT be binding on the US in any way, shape, or form. And declare (though there’s probably no specific law or precedent backing this up) that because adopted so very long ago, it would need to be re-signed in order to even submit it to the Senate. (It would practically demand a court interpretation from the Supreme Court to make that a yea or nay, with some Constitutional penumbras to navigate to the final answer.)
The EPA should be relocated.
But not to one place.
Instead, the EPA should be limited to temporary housing in places that the EPA has deemed as needing their protection. There they should remain, in one month rotation through the list of sites until each site is no longer in need of protection.
As each site is removed from the list the EPA can be downsized accordingly.