Well, E, why hasn't Britain signed it? Or any other country BUT one..Romania....And WHY hasn't our Senate ratified it in the last 4 (four) years under Clinton Gore...
...Posted this earlier on another board, but looks like it needs to be here too....Our Current Crisis Was Predicted when Al Gore Signed the Kyoto Treaty in 1997
Our Current Crisis Was Predicted when Al Gore Signed the Kyoto Treaty in 1997
Clinton's Energy Secretary's Secret Mission to Urge an Increase in the Price of Oil
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
October 13, 2000
Following the extraordinary events yesterday, which included a terrorist attack on a U.S. destroyer off the coast of Yemen, in which 17 American sailor are either dead or missing, the U.S. stock market dropped 379, the overnight stock markets in Asia began what the South China Morning Post calls "a free fall" immediately after opening Friday. However, not all prices were dropping. Crude oil prices, which were at a record low in February and early March 1999, before Bill Clinton began the bombing of Kosovo, are at a record high. Before bombing Kosovo the price of crude oil dropped below $10 a barrel.
Was all this just the natural result of a free market system of supply and demand? Hardly. According to an April 30, 2000 article in the Washington Post, it was the Clinton-Gore administration that urged the Arab oil producers to cut back oil production in order to raise the price of oil. The article, written by Andrew Hamilton stated:
"The continuing high prices at our gas pumps bring to mind an intriguing comment Bill Bradley made on March 1 during his debate with Al Gore as a Democratic presidential candidate. Responding to a question from the audience about soaring energy prices, he declared, 'I think the reason . . . is because we more or less asked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to raise oil prices in hopes of helping Russia . . . develop its economy.'
"...Despite repeated statements by administration officials to the effect that 'markets should set prices,' there is persuasive circumstantial evidence that the Clinton administration played an important role in encouraging the OPEC cartel to reduce production, and thus raise prices, last year. That encouragement was motivated in part by an urgent need to gain Russian support for--or at least acquiescence in--the war over Kosovo and in part by the desire to expand oil-for-food exports from Iraq in the face of increasing international criticism of sanctions."
It appears that Clinton's Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson, visited Saudi Arabia in February 1999 when prices were at their lowest. A few months later former Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani told a Houston audience that Richardson had 'saved the oil industry,' during that visit, because his 'intervention' had 'persuaded' the Saudis to change policy by raising prices." Andrew Hamilton reported in his April 2000 article that:
"Soon after Richardson's visit, a Saudi official told Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, an industry newsletter, 'We want a WTI (West Texas Intermediate) price of $18 to $20 as soon as possible.' (WTI is the benchmark grade of crude oil used to gauge market trends.)"
At that point, the price of crude oil was about $10 a barrel and you were paying about $1.00 a gallon for gasoline. Thanks to the Clinton-Gore intervention last year, the fact that 62% of our oil is now coming from foreign sources, Analysts now warn that crude oil prices could easily top $40 a barrel as a result of tight supplies this winter and continued tensions in the Middle East. On spot markets yesterday, oil rose to $37 per barrel - just shy of its 10-year high - on news of a terrorist attack on a U.S. ship off the coast of Yemen and an Israeli offensive against the headquarters of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.
While the timing of the possible $40 a barrel price is obviously no exactly what Al Gore hoped for, coming just a few weeks before the Year 2000 Presidential Election, his goal has been to raise the price of oil since his days in the Senate. As recently as his signing of the Kyoto treaty in 1997, Al Gore agreed that the United States would reduce C02 emissions to 7% less than the 1990 figures. The treaty requires:
Article 2 - "Progressive reduction or phasing out of market imperfections , fiscal incentives, tax and duty exemptions, and subsidies in all greenhouse emitting sectors that run counter to the objective of the convention and application of market instruments."
That is part of the Kyoto treaty's goal of raising the price of both gasoline and heating oil. Al Gore pushed for that treaty, in spite of the fact that the Senate voted 95-0 against it. However, like many other UN documents, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention of the Rights of the Child, the Clinton-Gore administration, through executive orders, has just circumvented congress in implementing those documents in the United States.
In analyses published in December 1997, the National Center of Policy Analysis (NCPA)warned that cutting carbon dioxide emissions would cost the average U.S. household more than $2,000 per year -- and the price for heating oil would rise 55 percent, natural gas 50 percent, electricity 48 percent and gasoline 36 percent...." NCPA (http://www.ncpa.org/hotlines/global/gwhot.html) also warned, the day after the Kyoto treaty was signed:
"The Kyoto treaty approved yesterday calls on the U.S. to cut its emissions of 'greenhouse gases' to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. As of the end of last year, the U.S. was 11 percent above its 1990 level. Critics warn that we are in for decades of wrenching change if we are to come close to that goal.
* Job losses will range from 2 million to more than 3 million, according to an industry group, the Global Climate Coalition.
* Experts predict U.S. gross domestic product will be cut by 3 percent if Congress agrees to the Kyoto package.
* * That translates into $300 billion a year less in GDP.
Secretary Richardson's secret meeting with the Saudi oil minister, in which, the Saudis tell us, he negotiated an increase in the price of oil, came 28 months after Gore signed the Kyoto Treaty. Was this just coincidental, or was it a secret effort to implement the Kyoto treaty? When the Kyoto Treaty was signed in 1997, Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska warned:
"I am concerned about the Vice President committing the United States to act regardless of the outcome in Kyoto. This Administration cannot go at this alone. They must work with the Congress and the American people. This Administration cannot ignore the authority given by the U.S. Constitution to the U.S. Senate."
There is no doubt that raising the price of oil to $40 a barrel with cut consumption. It will also put a lot of companies out of business who cannot afford the increased costs of fuel. This will, as NCPA warned, translate to a reduction in America's gross domestic product (GDP).
As I often try to tell people, timing is everything. While implementation of his Global Warming policies is obviously taking place, it is equally obvious that Al Gore did not intend for them to take place just before this year's presidential election, which is why he has desperately tried to somehow blame the rise in oil prices on George W. Bush, who was one of the thousands of small oil producers who have been put out of business in the last 7 years by the Global Warming policies of Al Gore and Bill Clinton.
Gore's current pretense of being upset over the sharp rise in the price of oil is a smokescreen. As recently as this Wednesday's debate, when asked by Jim Lehrer:
LEHRER: New question, new subject.
Vice President Gore, on the environment, in your 1992 book you said, quote, "We must make the rescue of our environment the central organizing principle for civilization and there must be a wrenching transformation to save the planet." Do you still feel that way?
GORE: "I do. I think that in this 21st century, we will soon see the consequences of what's called global warming. There was a study just a few weeks ago suggesting that in summertime the north polar ice cap will be completely gone in 50 years. Already many people see the strange weather conditions that the old-timers say they've never seen before in their lifetimes. And what's happening is the level of pollution is increasing, significantly.
..."I think that holding on to the old ways and the old argument that the environment and the economy are in conflict, is really outdated. We have to be bold. We have to provide leadership.
"Now, it's true that we disagree on this. The governor said that he doesn't think this problem is necessarily caused by people. He's for letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."
Actually, of course, the oil reserves are in the tundra of the artic coastal plain, or the North Slope which is described as an "icy desert. Oil was found in the tundra when it was discovered that Eskimos cut pieces of the oil soaked tundra and burned it to heat their homes.
Since few Americans have ever BEEN there, when Al Gore talks about "letting the oil companies into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge" he does it to give the public the impression that the oil wells will displace the caribou and the birds in the Brooks Range. Actually, of course, the oil drilling would be confined to less than 1 percent of the Refuge,12,700 acres on the coastal plain and would not affect the remaining 1,257,300 unmapped acres.- in the Brooks Range where the caribou and the birds live.
As we are finding in what is happening right now in the Middle East, the dramatic rise in oil imports during the Clinton-Gore years present a threat to U.S. national security.
However, don't expect Al Gore to tell you that, or to change his mind about meeting the goals of the Kyoto Treaty which can only happen through forcing you to "change your old ways" of thinking, by which he means your consumption of gasoline for your car and heating fuel for your home.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com washingtonpost.com
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