New
Lawsuit Against State Department to Force
Disclosure of Effort to Evade Senate Role in
Paris Treaty
Washington,
D.C. – Yesterday the Competitive Enterprise
Institute (CEI ) filed
suit against the United States Department of
State, keying off of a damning email
obtained previously by the Energy &
Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), to
force this agency that is still stonewalling
about the Paris climate treaty to release
documents about how the Obama Administration
schemed to cut the Senate out of its express
constitutional treaty role. Knowing the treaty
would never obtain the required approval, the
Obama State Department outrageously pretended
the economy-altering climate pact, requiring new
more stringent commitments (laws and
regulations, and spending) every five years was
nothing more than an 'executive agreement' which
the President could enter without Senate
approval.
CEI’s lawsuit follows from documents obtained
through a lawsuit by E&E Legal against
State, which uncovered emails showing State
Department efforts to calm Senate (staff)
outrage when the New York Times broke the story,
on Aug. 24, 2014, that President Obama would
declare "the most ambitious climate agreement in
history" somehow "not a treaty". The
emails uncovered by E&E Legal show
the lawyer for Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Bob Corker declaring the
"disturbing contempt" this end-run showed
for the Senate's constitutional role. After
that, not a peep was heard from the Committee
Chairman, fresh off his Iran deal with the White
House even
more overtly endorsing abandonment of our
longstanding treaty process.
E&E Legal expects that this new lawsuit by
CEI, with assistance from E&E Legal's
lawyers in its own case, the Free Market
Environmental Law Clinic, will further show the
extent of the effort by the Obama Administration
to evade the Senate’s oversight. We hope that
the State Department will recognize its
obligation under the Freedom of Information Act
to release these documents so the people can
decide whether these efforts were an appropriate
use of public resources.
We also hope it will help prompt the Trump White
House to demand the long-overdue review of
ongoing stonewalls protecting Obama
administration abuses, the list of which is long
and, bizarrely, growing.
To read more about this effort by the Obama
Administration, see E&E Legal Senior Fellow
Chris Horner’s article
“Obama’s Paris climate scheme revelation” in
the Washington Times.
About
E&E Legal
The
Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E
Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization engaged in
strategic litigation, policy research, and
public education on important energy and
environmental issues. Primarily through its
petition litigation and transparency practice
areas, E&E Legal seeks to correct onerous
federal and state policies that hinder the
economy, increase the cost of energy, eliminate
jobs, and do little or nothing to improve the
environment.
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