Evidence: Most Popular
The proponents of this bill know full well that it will empower their special interests to gain massive power over the economic hopes of peoples throughout the world. Development is unlikely under the clumsy management of the UN bureaucracy. Moreover, the treaty by empowering environmental elites to raise significant new legal objections against agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and even technology will gain new abilities to stop or slow economic development. Ratifying LOST would be to open not one but a myriad of Pandora’s boxes – exacerbating the problems of an already overly litigious society, an America that already finds it difficult to site and build anything. We do not build a better future by empowering the forces of stasis. The NIMBY problems that America now faces may fade as LOST moves us toward NOPE policies.
LOST is a heavily regulatory bill, creating a body charged with protecting the seas. But, everything eventually flows into the seas. Thus, the UN gains the power to look upstream and into the skies to ensure that everything that has – or might have – impact on the seas be scrutinized and disciplined. The unintended consequences of this regulatory overreach cannot be under-estimated; its potential for damage is massive. This Committee has not done “due diligence” on this topic. And, for the complacent, note that the proponents of this bill – environmental alarmists and legal enthusiasts – are adept at converting hortatory language into legal prohibitions. Did anyone expect the Endangered Species Act to become a national land use planning act? Did anyone expect Superfund to become one of the most costly green pork barrel measures in history or that the Clean Water Act would compel the Corps of Engineers to ban development throughout any area that might have been or might become at some time a “wetland?”
This redistributionist, collectivist language, I’ve suggested, is archaic and this is not surprising. The treaty was drafted during the height of the G-77 – when many saw world poverty as the result of the west’s wealth. People in Africa, Asia, and South America were poor because we were rich; make us poorer and they will become richer! In that era, only foreign aid and other wealth redistribution schemes were viewed as offering any hope of alleviating world poverty. LOST was typical of the flawed policy prescriptions of that era. But the world has learned much over the last decades. Most now recognize that Foreign Aid, while occasionally useful in emergency relief situations, can too often stifle the entrepreneurial forces and political reforms which offer the only hope for sustainable economic growth. The work of Lord Peter Bauer, recipient of the Cato Institute Friedman Prize, showed that too often foreign aid is simply the transfer of wealth from the poor in the rich world to the rich in the poor world, that such wealth transfer programs hurt, rather than helped the poor. LOST was crafted in this era and it shows. Even the World Bank and its other international institutions increasingly recognize that the key to addressing poverty is for the affected nation states to move toward economic freedom, private property, a predictable rule of law, a reduction in domestic violence. To enshrine collective political management of the oceans does nothing to advance this cause.
The most absurd argument made against the Convention is the notion that it would hinder U.S. efforts to interdict shipments of materials used for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles used to deliver them. The opposite is true. Signing the Convention helps stop proliferation.
Opponents contend that because the Convention protects freedom of the seas and freedom of already passage in territorial waters, signing would prohibit the U.S. Navy from stopping suspect shipments.12 This argument is based on a misunderstanding of both international law and America’s current nonproliferation efforts. The Convention offers states limited reasons for violating a ship’s freedom of the seas or right of innocent passage, and these reasons do not include carrying weapons. But these constraints on U.S. conduct already exist. Freedom of the seas and the right of innocent passage are codified in the treaties the United States passed in 1958 and subsequently recognized as customary international law. If the United States ever had a right to stop shipments without regard for freedom or the seas and the right of innocent passage, that right is long gone. The Convention imposes no new restrictions on the United States’ ability to interdict weapons shipments.
The charge has been made that this is a modest treaty, and we have not had any problem with people trying to use it to interfere with the use of our military and its mobility around the world, because it has not happened yet. This minor staff, this innocuous multilateral organization, is so inconsequential as to be of no concern in any of these respects. I must say again, that may be true today. In fact, it is not entirely surprising that it is true today since I believe that everyone who wishes to use this treaty against us has understood that they need to get us into the treaty before they start doing that, or else we will not get into the treaty. Now, does that sound conspiratorial? Well, again, I think if you are a conservative, the old adage "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you" applies. We need to be suspicious, especially when dealing with the U.N. or agencies like the U.N., to say nothing of an organization that was crafted by a majority that was determined to create supra- national organizations to run two-thirds of the world; that is to say, the two-thirds of the planet that is covered by international waters.
How about taxing authority? This will be the first time that an international organization has explicitly been given the ability to raise revenues." Now John Moore will quibble, I suspect based on past experience with him, that this is not really a tax. These are fees; these are tithings of some kind, permitting obligations.'" Whatever its name; we would begiving to a U.N. organization the ability to raise its own revenues. And this is going to have precedential implications, especially at a moment when the U.N. is angling to try to find other ways to raise revenues, starting with airline taxes that are already being imposed by some in order to pay for unobjectionable things like AIDS and tuberculosis and other medical treatments through U.N. facilities." That is something conservatives should be concerned about, especially since it ensures that the U.N. will be even less accountable than it is today when it relies on us for a quarter of its funding.
Currently, proposed offshore wind projects are located within the territorial waters. But as technology improves and the incentives for wind power increase, installations will be pushed further offshore into what would be the EEZ. But before such development can be contemplated, UNCLOS must be implemented to secure the rights to develop wind power and provide clarity in the law that governs such sites. The rights currently enjoyed by the United States to its continental shelf are not sufficient to adequately protect the exclusive and positive right to develop offshore wind projects in those waters. But ratification of UNCLOS will guarantee U.S. rights to develop the EEZ.
UNCLOS contains provisions that provide rights necessary or advantageous to the development of offshore wind power. The treaty contains requirements that pose hurdles to offshore wind as well. The advantages, however, far outweigh the hurdles. Any downsides the treaty might create can be accommodated and will not block development, while the benefits of the treaty are necessary for the development of wind power, especially outside the territorial waters. Because UNCLOS has significant benefits and only limited burdens, the United States should ratify UNCLOS to secure offshore wind interests.
The future of offshore wind will likely depend on ratification of UNCLOS. Offshore wind is in its infancy in the United States, but has great potential to supply a large portion of the nation’s energy needs.66 To accomplish this development, the United States will need to expand farther offshore.67 While expansion would require new advances in offshore wind technology, such expansion is economically viable.68 The incentives to pursue such expansion will likely increase as the pressure to combat global warming increases and fossil fuel prices continue to rise.69 By ratifying UNCLOS now, the United States can secure its future in offshore wind energy.
Wind power is a rapidly growing source of alternative energy that is likely to be a fundamental feature in the United States’ energy future.8 The success of traditional terrestrial wind turbines combined with an increasing demand for alternative energy has led to increased proposals for developing offshore wind resources.9 Because oceans and seas are governed by a wide body of treaties, the construction of offshore wind installations will raise questions of international law.10 Ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”)11 by the United States would clarify the issues of international law for U.S. development of offshore wind power.12
UNCLOS is a multinational treaty defining and codifying the law of the sea. On May 15, 2007, President Bush submitted UNCLOS to the Senate for its advice and consent.13 The Senate’s ratification of UNCLOS will secure U.S. interests in the development of offshore wind power by providing a uniform body of law for offshore development. Most importantly, it will define jurisdiction, and provide for dispute resolution.