http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/03/obama-cynically-cut-china-deal-to-force-energy-price-hikes-on-u-s-consumers/Excerpts from this article below, indicates Obama is trying to use an international executive treaty to force his agenda down our throats.
“President Obama’s little-noticed greenhouse-gas emissions agreement with China may be the most one-sided deal since the Dutch purchased Manhattan. Taken at face value, the deal doesn’t make any sense—at least, not from the United States national-interest perspective. The United States agrees to costly massive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions: 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, far more than the 17-percent cut the president previously targeted. In return, China agrees to…do nothing for 16 years. But there is a method to what would otherwise seem to be pure madness. As the numbers suggest, the deal has just about nothing to do with China, which will go on its merry way building coal-fired plants to slake its thirst for cheap and secure energy. But it has everything to do with Americans’ continued reliance on coal-generated electricity. Radically cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions has been a central goal for the president since taking office. The centerpiece of this drive was supposed to be a cap-and-trade system, but that was dead on arrival even when Democrats controlled Congress. So the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been dutifully marching forward with a slew of politically-challenged and legally-questionable regulations, from its first wave of permitting requirements for new facilities emitting greenhouse gases (struck down in part by the Supreme Court) to its proposed “performance standards” for new power plants (withdrawn and then re-proposed following legal objections) to its recently-proposed “Clean Power Plan” to cap emissions from existing power plants (already the subject of litigation and withering criticism). To be sure, an executive agreement like this one is not legally binding—a treaty, after all, has to be ratified by the Senate, which the president knows is politically impossible. But the courts are generally more deferential to policy decisions that have foreign-policy consequences, given the president’s unique competence and authority in that area. Expect our bilateral “obligations” to China to occupy a place of prominence in legal briefs defending the Clean Power Plan, which is conveniently referenced in the U.S.-China executive agreement, from the legal challenges that are sure to follow its introduction.”
