Media Archives

Media Matters is criticizing the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner for saying, on the Fox New Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto, that ratification of the Kyoto global warming treaty was not a high profile for President Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. The Media Matters headline reads: "On Fox's Your World, CEI's Horner Misled on Kyoto, Global Warming."

Media Matters says, in part:

On the June 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Chris Horner, counsel for the oil industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed falsely that the Clinton administration chose not to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification because it did not consider global warming a "high-profile issue." In fact, Senate Republicans made clear at the time that Clinton would not be able to garner enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty...

Objecting to former President Bill Clinton taking credit for efforts to curb global warming during his presidency, Horner claimed that Clinton "set the U.S. policy, which was [that] for the final three years of his presidency, the U.S. would not seek participation in -- that is ratification of -- Kyoto." Horner made the claim to advance his suggestion that the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty mandating that countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, "was not a high-profile issue or a priority issue for the Clinton administration, like, say, school uniforms. It was not even a low-priority issue, like, say, finding Osama bin Laden."

But, contrary to Horner's assertion, it was in fact Senate Republicans who made clear that they would not ratify the Kyoto treaty. As The Washington Post reported on December 11, 1997, just before the Kyoto agreement was reached, key Senate Republicans declared the treaty "dead on arrival..."

The Washington Post on December 11, 1997 may indeed have said, as Media Matters later demonstrates, that "key Senate Republicans declared the accord 'dead on arrival,' and a leading Democratic supporter urged that the Senate delay a vote in light of its bleak prospects." However, the saying of a thing is less important than the doing of the thing.

The "doing of the thing" occurred July 25, 1997 with passage of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98). Byrd-Hagel "express[ed] the sense of the Senate regarding the conditions for the United States becoming a signatory to any international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," that is, told the Clinton-Gore Administration what 95 out of 95 Senators present and voting were prepared to vote to ratify in a global warming treaty expected to emerge at the then-upcoming December 1997 global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan.

Byrd-Hagel was approved 95-0. It says, in part:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, or thereafter, which would--

(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex I Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period, or

(B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States...

President Clinton approved a Kyoto Treaty that violated two out of two of these bi-partisan Senate requirements. Then Clinton declined to put up a fight to get the Senate to change its mind.

It seems to me that Chris Horner is right and Media Matters is wrong to criticize him. Senate Republicans may well have told Clinton Kyoto couldn't be ratified, but Senate Democrats -- indeed, 95 out of 95 Senators present at voting in July 1997 -- told Clinton the very same thing. And, if Clinton disagreed, he didn't do much to fight them.

Wired Magazine graded a few of the older environmental organizations in last month's issue regarding their willingness to embrace technology and capitalism.

A for Environmental Defense. B+ for NRDC. GreenPeace and Friends of the Earth looking at C's. The order seems right, but I think the rankings suffer from grade inflation --- especially at the lower end. If Friends of the Earth International and Greenpeace are pulling as high as C's and C+'s for embracing capitalism and technology, then China probably deserves a B-minus for embracing human rights and Hamas pulls its own gentlemen's C for embracing Israel.

Terry Anderson, executive director of PERC, will discuss free market environmentalism as part of a web chat sponsored by the U.S. State Department on Thursday, April 13th, at noon EST. For those interested in listening in, please visit here.

Author Michael Crichton's November 6th talk on complexity and environmental management can be found here. In a discussion that spans the gamut from Y2K to the Population Bomb to Yellowstone Park, Crichton explains how the earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods of the past year aren't the end of the world --- rather they are how the every day world works.

Thanks to Jane Shaw for providing the link.

Ron Bailey's review of Jared Diamond's Collapse is a couple months old, but for those who missed it, the read is a worthwhile one.

As the 35th anniversary of Earth Day is today, a couple pieces from around the horn:

Tracy Mehan has a piece over at NRO on the continually improving quality of the environment.

I have a piece on alternative environmentalism over at A Better Earth.

Over at Reason, Ron Bailey discusses AEI and the Pacific Research Institute's latest release of environmental indicators. The trend remains positive. Sally Pipes and Steve Hayward add additional commentary on their Index at NRO.

I must say that I get a kick out of Amazon.com and others who attempt to sell stuff online that can be had for free with a google search. For instance, an article that I wrote on farm subsidies harming the environment two years ago costs you $5.95 at Amazon, but you can get it at the American Enterprise website where originally published as well as here and here for free.

I also found out in a shameless binge of ego-surfing today that A Better Earth is running a book review of mine where I argue that while "wealthier is healthier" is an important concept, it is perhaps more important to remember that stable property rights are what create wealth. Maybe the most important part of the review is its effort to debunk the idea that development assistance can have the same success as property rights in creating wealth for the developing world. If you have a little time to kill, I'm rather proud of that review and happy to see it getting a little press, so consider checking it out.

Finally, ego-surfing led me to a just-released Reason Institute study advocating recreation fees for federal lands, which relies on my paper from last June dealing with some of the hurdles facing such fees.

Benjamin Wittes of the Washington Post writes in the May issue of The Atlantic Monthly that the threat liberals should be most concerned about when thinking of conservative justices is the environment. According to Wittes, "the threat to basic environmental protections from conservative jurisprudence is broad-based and severe." He then elucidates what he sees as problems from Commerce Clause jurisprudence, sovereign immunity jurisprudence, and doctrines of standing as espoused by conservative justices. The article can be found here.

Editor & Publisher reports that San Jose Mercury News editor David Yarnold is leaving to join Environmental Defense. David Hogberg suggests this is evidence of pro-environmentalist bias in the news media, particularly given how critical groups like ED were of President Bush's reelection effort. For myself, I am not familiar enough with the SJMN's coverage of environmental issues to say whether it has had a green tint.

The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has just released an online book about the impact of environmental issues for the 2004 elections. Authors include Deb Callahan of the League of Conservation Voters, Congressman Chris Shays, 2000 Presidential runner-up Al Gore, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, and John Podesta. There is also a chapter by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. bashing the Bush Administration policies. The book (Red, White, Blue & Green: Politics and the Environment in the 2004 Election) can be downloaded from the School's website for free. I haven't had a chance to read all of the chapters, but for some of them at least, the price is just about right. Apologies to friends of mine who worked on the book, but I just think many assertions in the book cannot be defended and that is being kind.

For instance, Jonathan Adler's earlier critiques of Kennedy's general line of argument against the Bush environmental record can be found here as well as here.

The NYT summarizes the Bush administration environmental record here (and in an accompanying graphic with a pop-up link on that page) -- and it's far more balanced (and accurate) than RFK!

For what it's worth, the administration defends its own environmental record here. As it makes clear, the environmentalist attacks are overstated, but there's not all that much for free market types to cheer.

The latest issue of PERC Reports is now available. The cover story asks whether we are running out of oil, and Rob Bradley explains why we are not.

Other articles in this issue cover private recycling in Guatemala, problems with fisheries management, and dealing with mosquitos in wetland restoration.

On the topic of the politicization of National Geographic, I recommend this post and also this post on the excellent "Bill's Comments" blog.

For those who missed it, the Wall Street Journal had a nice piece on the Mercatus Center on Friday.

Joe Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, has a very interesting transcript on his website. It is from a speech he gave about environmentalism to the Libertarian Party Convention.

Among other things, Joe addresses the current state of the environment, his past as a self-described "hippie freak" and critiques a talk given earlier at the convention by the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Anyone interested in environmental issues will enjoy the transcript from Joe's talk about Common Sense Environmentalism.