Avast! This day, Senator Pat Toomey came out in opposition to th’ United Nations’ Law ‘o th’ Sea Treaty, which he said risks American interests.
In a press release from Toomey’s office, the first-term Republican Senator said the treaty compromises the sovereignty of the United States by subjecting American navigational laws to an international political body.
“Ours be the greatest navy in the world, and it has sufficiently protected our navigational rights and freedoms for more than 200 years before the Law of the Sea Treaty’s existence,” Toomey said. “We do not need to rely on an unaccountable international body to secure these rights.
Currently, the bill sits in the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. In the past few days, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have argued in support of the treaty, saying that it benefits national security and U.S. standing in the world.
Toomey also expressed reservations over transferring royalties from oil and gas wells on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf to the International Seabed Authority, calling the group “an unaccountable, multinational organization.”
The announcement of Toomey’s opposition to the Law of the Sea Treaty follows that of the Senator’s swashbuckling predecessors. Although the U.S. helped shaped the treaty between 1973 and 1982, Congress has voted down implementing it since the Reagan administration.
The U.S. is the only major nation in the world that has refused to sign the treaty after it went into effect in 1994.
Toomey said now is hardly the time to break from U.S. tradition of freely sailing the Seven Seas.
“The United States has a long tradition of opposing the Law of the Sea treaty, beginning with President Ronald Reagan’s rejection of the treaty in 1982, and we should continue that tradition today,” Toomey said.
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7 Responses
The LOST Treaty is part of the UN’s Agenda 21 One World Government. It provides for a tax on natural resources. Any Senator that votes for this uncostitutional mess needs to be shown the door on election day. Plus we need to get out of the UN all together.
We don’t need to have soverignty over all the world but we must maintain sovereignty over our national interests. The what and who changes every year,but this treaty was NOT ratified because it is NOT in our best interest. Other countries do not care about our interests. We are an exceptional country, for all our faults, and need to stay that way. I applaud Toomey but don’t hold out much hope for Casey as he is Obamas man. Obama could care less about our national interests.
Absolutely! We must never do anything differently than we have in the past. As Senator Toomey says, there is a long precedent (30 years!) of rejecting this treaty and other treaties that could compromise US sovereignty over the rest of the world. Our nation must remain exceptional at all costs. What do we care about the rest of the world?
Senator Toomey is 100% right on this issue. I hope Senator Casey will join him?
@Bob – we are signaling that the Law of the Sea treaty has a funny-sounding name.
Was this from a DNC press release?
Not quite up to PoliticsPA standards.
Why not an examination of the facts instead of a cartoonish lampoon of a serious issue.
Patrick McAteer and editor Gibson would seem to be signaling their approval of the Law of the Sea Treaty. Editorializing with headline, directing the reader’s attention to the conclusion the reporter, supposedly only reporting the facts, wants the reader to reach.
I wonder if Patrick McAteer and Keegan Gibson might pick up the phone and call Sen. Casey for his view. Of course, they might be busy self-congratulating themselves on their snarky editorial headline.
What does Sen. Casey think about this Treaty? a good thing or a bad thing and will he support it or oppose it and will he make a public statement.
fyi Sen. Toomey is right. This is a very, very bad Treaty for American Exceptionalism.