Fragile, but off to a good start.
That’s my assessment of President Donald J. Trump’s initial actions regarding the environment, climate change, and energy.
On the first day of his return to the White House, President Trump signed nine executive orders related to those topics. He did similar things on the first day of his first term, eight years ago.
They were all good decisions. But they were all wiped away on the first day of his successor, former President Joe Biden.
That’s because, as executive orders, they can be undone instantly by another executive order.
So, if President Trump and his political allies — namely, Republicans in Congress and elsewhere — want these new executive orders to have staying power, they have to do the much harder work of passing legislation.
And while that work is harder, it isn’t impossible.
Let’s take the Paris climate accords as an example. Early in his first term, President Trump, by executive order, started the lengthy process by which the United States removed itself from the accords. That process ended not long before the end of his term.
And Biden put us back into it, quickly and easily, at the start of his term, and we were right back where we’d been — and even with some onerous conditions added by the United Nations.
On January 20, not long after being sworn in, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements.” That order effectively starts, again, the process by which we will leave the Paris Accord. Here’s the critical language:
Sec. 3. Implementation. (a) The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The notice shall be submitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Depositary of the Agreement, attached as Appendix A. The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification.
(b) The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit written formal notification to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, or any relevant party, of the United States’ withdrawal from any agreement, pact, accord, or similar commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
(c) The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, in collaboration with the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury, shall immediately cease or revoke any purported financial commitment made by the United States under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
(d) Immediately upon completion of the tasks listed in subsections (a), (b), and (c), the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, in collaboration with the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury shall certify a report to the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs that describes in detail any further action required to achieve the policy objectives set forth in section 2 of this order.
(e) The US International Climate Finance Plan is revoked and rescinded immediately. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall, within 10 days of this order, issue guidance for the rescission of all frozen funds.
There’s more, but this is the heart of the executive order. And it’s good. Very good.
But there is something else President Trump can and should do that will drive a silver stake through the heart of the Paris Accord vampire.
He should determine that the accord is not an executive agreement — which former President Obama declared to be in the executive order by which he brought America into the accord — but a treaty. As a treaty, it can go into effect if and only if the United States Senate approves of it by a two-thirds majority vote — that is, 67 out of 100 Senators would have to vote for it.
How hard would that be for supporters of the treaty to get?
Let’s take a lesson from history. At COP 3, the third Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Kyoto, Japan, December 1 to 11, 1997, the convention adopted what became known as the Kyoto Protocol, which set binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for developed countries. It was opened for signature in March, 1998, and went into effect February 15, 2005.
But the United States was never bound by it — despite the fact that the Clinton Administration supported it, and Vice President Al Gore signed it in what was essentially an empty ceremony, on November 12, 1998.
Why?
Because back in July of 1997—five months before COP 3—the US Senate had adopted the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, sponsored by Senators Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska.
The Byrd-Hagel Resolution stated that the United States should not sign any international agreement that would impose mandatory greenhouse gas reductions on the US without also including binding commitments from developing nations or if it would harm the US economy.
That resolution had passed by a unanimous vote of 97-0. As a result, the Clinton Administration knew the Kyoto Protocol would be dead on arrival if it were submitted to the Senate. So it never submitted it. Neither did the Bush Administration, or the Obama Administration.
So, the Kyoto Protocol never bound the United States.
In full knowledge that it would be impossible to get the Paris Accord approved by the Senate, President Obama declared that it was merely an executive agreement. President Biden knew the same when, in 2021, he brought us back into the Paris Accord after President Trump had removed us from it.
So, what’s the solution? How do we get out of Paris and stay out of Paris?
President Trump, having already issued his executive order to extract us from it, should now declare it to be a treaty, not an executive agreement, and submit it to the Senate for approval, as the Constitution requires for any treaty.
What are the odds that the Senate would approve it? First, remember that two-thirds of Senators must vote for a treaty for it to bind the United States. So opponents would need only 34 negative votes to kill it. Republicans hold 53 seats and would almost certainly vote unanimously against it; but if even just 34 Republicans voted against it, it would fail.
But those Republicans will undoubtedly not be alone in voting against it. Just as in 1997, Democratic Senators, knowing the onerous costs the treaty would impose on their constituents, would vote against it, too, because while many were glad for America to be bound by the Paris Accord when all the blame could be laid on President Obama, few, if any, would be glad for their constituents to hold them accountable for those costs themselves.
In 1997, that meant that not a single Democrat voted against the Byrd-Hagel Resolution. To vote for the Paris Accord now would be to go against that resolution — not impossible but extremely unlikely.
So, the most likely outcome of submitting the Paris Accord to the Senate for ratification would be its overwhelming defeat — probably not unanimous, like Byrd-Hagel’s, but surely by a lopsided margin.
So, President Trump, if you or your advisors are listening, you know what you can do to truly put America first with regard to this international agreement. Submit it to the Senate. Watch it die. And go home in victory.
