Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, and Chuck Hagel sent a pointed letter to President Clinton on March 3 asking him to personally reassure them that they hadn't been misled by undersecretary of state Stuart Eizenstat. Eizenstat, they wrote, had testified before the Foreign Relations Committee in February that the administration would not implement the Kyoto global-warming treaty without Senate approval. And they quoted his response to a question from Hagel: "We have no intention," Eizenstat said, "through the backdoor or anything else, without Senate confirmation, of trying to impose or take any steps to impose what would be binding restrictions on our companies, on our industry, on our business, or on our agriculture, or on our commerce, or on our country until and unless the Senate of the United States says so."
Meantime, however, the EPA's Web site is abuzz with "Climate Change Action Plans" for the states, suggestions to the states on how they will be able to comply with Kyoto-mandated emission levels (higher gas taxes, for instance), and all manner of "voluntary" programs for businesses and local governments who want to live up to the spirit of the (still-unratified) Kyoto treaty. Many states have already received grants from the EPA to plan their onerous new regulatory regimes.
Contrasting this beaver-like activity with Eizenstat's statement, THE SCRAPBOOK is reminded anew that the key verb of the Clinton era is "to parse." Because, upon parsing Eizenstat's testimony, it's clear he didn't really promise anything. The administration will threaten, cajole, plead with, urge, and cheerlead the states into abiding by Kyoto. And they will do it through front doors, back doors, side doors, and trap doors, whether the Senate approves or not. They'll just never do anything "binding."
Reading between the lines of the Lott-Helms-Hagel letter, it's clear the senators fear they have been had. They're right. They should in return parse the administration's budget requests for EPA, and for Mr. Eizenstat's office, very, very closely.