Valentine: This is Washington; How Can I Disconnect You?

Hello this is Washington, how can I disconnect you?

It flew under most people’s radar. The United States paid $500 million into the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund last week. It was the first payment of the $3 billion the Obama Administration pledged to the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Can the government we fund be any more disconnected from actually serving the people paying for it?

In current events, $500 million is the estimated cost to fix the water system that has poisoned the families living in Flint, Michigan. It seems so much more difficult to find that money.

$500 million was the amount the Obama Administration spent on the program to train and equip Syrian fighters. We got four or five fighters from that program.

And $500 million makes the $43 million the Obama Administration spent on a gas station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan seem like a bargain until you realize nobody can use it.

The Paris Climate Change Agreement was born disconnected from American citizens. If you want to put it in historical context, a few days earlier ISIS launched three coordinated attacks in Paris, killing 129 people and wounding hundreds. It was difficult to suspend disbelief as our rulers declared the greatest threat to the world to be climate change.

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Live news feeds showed they had not yet cleaned the blood of the victims from the streets of Paris.

Yet the Obama Administration flaunted this disconnect from those required to pay for the Paris Climate Change Agreement. They publicly bragged about having no intention of submitting the agreement to the democratically elected senate for its advice or consent. Josh Earnest, Obama’s spokesman said, “I think it’s hard to take seriously from some members of congress who deny the fact that climate change exists, that they should have some opportunity to render judgment about a climate change agreement.”

The problem is that it has all the hallmarks of a treaty that should be submitted to the Senate for its approval under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Also, the agreement contains targets and timetables for emissions reductions. The Obama Administration’s failure to submit the agreement to the senate breaches a commitment made by the executive branch to the Senate in 1992 in regard to ratification of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The treaty itself makes little scientific sense. 

There’s voluntary monitoring of emissions, but its language is mainly focused on actual temperatures and financial pledges.

Basically, it’s an agreement that money will be taken from the taxpayers of larger countries and sent to the UN to be distributed in a vague way to the smaller countries of the world.

Last month, The Supreme Court froze the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan which may have some impact on The Paris Agreement.

However, now that they have US taxpayer money, Héla Cheikhrouhou, the fund’s executive director is hiring 120 new staff members. She’s optimistic that the Obama Administration, without any input from Congress, has pledged $2.5 billion more after making the initial $500 million deposit.

The Republic of Fiji has marked history by being the first country in the world to ratify the Paris Climate Change deal.

Does anyone really think this has anything much to do with pollution?