Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

With all due respect to my good friend and colleague from New Hampshire, we both served on the Foreign Relations Committee. The Foreign Relations Committee is, as it has been noted, the committee of jurisdiction on this matter. We are talking about the Paris climate agreement. What Senator Shaheen is attempting to do with this--and, again, with all due respect, I understand where she is coming from on it--is to stop the President from withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement that was made by his predecessor, President Obama.

Let me say, first of all, that the Senator is right that the changes we are experiencing are great. They have large effects. They are of great magnitude. Just as importantly, the changes we make attempting to address this are going to have great magnitude. In a great magnitude, they are going to affect the American people both financially and in the quality of life and the lifestyle they enjoy.

We can't do anything about the changes that are occurring right now, but what we can do is to do something about the way we attack this, the way we make changes to our lifestyle and what we will give up and what people are willing to give up in order to address this.

The way this is done is nations get together to talk about this--the 200 nations get together. They did, and they came up with the Paris climate agreement. Under article II of the U.S. Constitution, section 2, the President is given the power to make treaties with other countries, and that is what President Obama attempted to do with this. However, section 2 goes on to say that the President can make these treaties provided two-thirds of the Senate present concur. So that is a treaty, and that is how ordinarily agreements are made between nations.

Obviously, we can do things ourselves without having a two-thirds vote--with a 60-percent vote in the Senate and a simple majority vote in the House. We can do that amongst ourselves if we want to change U.S. law as to how we are going to change the way we do industry and the way we lead our lives. We can do that with that kind of a vote. If we are going to agree with other countries, on the other hand, it takes a two-thirds vote.

Now, at the time this was negotiated, I disagreed with President Obama, and I disagree with the accord at this time. The reason I do is I really believe this is a bad deal for the people of the United States. I really believe we can get a better deal. I think what we need to do, if we are going to do that, is we need to do it on a bipartisan basis. There is not going to be a two-thirds vote without a bipartisan agreement on this issue.

I would like to see this addressed. I would like to see us, as the Foreign Relations Committee, and us, as the first branch of government, constitutionally protected as such, be a part of this and not just the second branch negotiating and then entering into the agreement.

The President has, No. 1, every right to withdraw from this agreement, just as President Obama had the right to enter into this executive agreement. I, for one, agree that he should withdraw from the Paris accord. In fact, I encouraged him to do so personally when he was running and then when he was elected and continuously since then. That doesn't mean we should walk away from this by any stretch of the imagination. I think what we should do is do what the U.S. Constitution envisions; that is, you have a negotiation between us, the United States, and other countries, and then the matter is submitted to the U.S. Senate for a vote to see if two-thirds of us can agree that this is the way to do this.

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Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, first of all, I don't question the sincerity whatsoever of my good friend from New Hampshire. Indeed, she is quite correct that the United States has been a leader as far as developing methods by which we clean up the air and clean up the water.

There is nothing that is happening here today, at this moment, that is going to affect that at all. American companies are going to continue to be on the front edge of this, on a very innovative basis, and I have every confidence that American businesses will rise to the occasion and will continue to actually be the world leader in this regard.

citizens by doing it without going through the constitutional process of submitting the agreement that is between our country and others, as is specifically--very specifically provided in article II, section 2.

I think if we did that, I think we would wind up with a better agreement. I think we would wind up with a bipartisan agreement. We all know that when we have a bipartisan agreement, we do substantially better as far as rising to the occasion and all getting behind the effort.

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