Edited by author 06-16-2004 11:33 PM
Mark

Mark

Ref Kyoto

The treaty was signed by the Clinton administration knowing it would never be ratifed.

The Senate voted 95-0 instructions with 4 items. The Senate seldom exercises this privilege, when the do they expect to be listened to. Not one of them is in the treaty. It takes two-thirds vote to ratify a treaty. The expectation that the vote would go from 95-0 to xx-67 is pure imagination. On the other hand this was before the 2000 election and Clinton wanted to gain support from the Green lobby for Gore’s election. They voted for Nader anyway.

The biggest kicker was it would cause, depending on the source, 1 to 5% permanent increase in unemployment. (2-3% from the better sources.) This is Bush’s stated reason for rejecting the treaty. Some quarters are getting a lot of fun by dumping on Bush because he got to make the announcement that the treaty was being killed( he probably would have any way, but if he wanted to have it ratifed he couldn't have done it.) The pro-labor part of the Democratic Party would have been able to muster enough votes to be sure it never passed. But it would have been fun to watch them maneuver to kill it without embarrassing their allies in the Democratic party who support it.