The Clinton administration and the Congress anti-environmental approach

This section focuses on the main actions, and domestic scenario in which President Clinton and his administration had to act. The consideration of the background and historical facts will help to better understand the origins of such internal environmental obstructionism and the reasons of the unfortunate destiny of the Kyoto Protocol in the US framework. In order to cautiously prove that the US non-ratification of the Kyoto Protocol was in a sense premeditated by the Clinton administration, we must do a step behind and consider the period preceding the Kyoto negotiations together with two central elements: (1) the internal anti-environmental approach coming from the Senate and (2) the strategy about the Protocol that the administration created before going to Kyoto. The analysis of these elements will help clarifying the nature of the Clinton administration’s decisions over the signature and the non-ratification of the Protocol.

The Clinton administration started its mandate in 1993 bringing a new foreign policy approach. It was focused on the use of US economic power to reinforce the position and

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competitiveness of the nation in the international system (Cox, 2017). However, the administration also demonstrated since the beginning its intention to build a green reputation over the nation and it started doing it through the proposal of initial ambitious plans for domestic emissions reduction (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001). The corner stone of the administration’s environmental plan was the British Therman Unit (BTU) tax, which was based on the heat content of the fuel and was planned to cut federal deficit while at same time reducing GHG emissions (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001) (Harrison, 2007). During the 1993-Earth Day celebrations, President Clinton publicly announced his commitment to reducing US GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 and his intention to instruct his administration to produce effective plans (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001). This speech marked the beginning of an important chapter for the US climate policy, which however revealed then to be difficulty implementable.

In October 1993 the first domestic tensions came into existence, and more precisely from the Congress, with the BTU tax. In 1993, the administration proposed this tax on fossil fuels as an energy conservation measure, but it was narrowly able to pass the House of Representatives (Harrison, 2007). Hempel (2002) reports comments from critics at that time, which affirmed that ‘the tax would unfairly hamper US firms competing in the global market’ (p. 319). This cold approach sounded as the first alarm bell for the administration which seemed very determined to bring a green change. Moreover, the most noteworthy aspect is that the BTU tax was proposed by the Democratic Clinton administration and encountered a Congress totally composed by Democrats (Senate and House), which traditionally has been identified as pro- environmental policies (Harrison, 2007). The administration grasped the increasing difficulties on the horizon and started softening its environmental proposals. Indeed, in 1993 President Clinton published his (shy) CC Action Plan (CCAP), but it only included quiet voluntary programs (Harrison, 2007).

In 1994 the Congressional elections became the priority. Republicans ended up in constituting the majority in the whole Congress and successively, in 1996, CC was not anymore, a political priority (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001). Several domestic actions on CC started being only at the level of governmental agencies, where participating companies and organizations in the CCAP were not able to achieve the target of bringing US emissions to 1990-level (Agrawala &

Andersen, 2001). The administration explained this failure affirming that there was a series of

‘unfortunate circumstances beyond the control of the administration’ (Skjaerseth & Skodvin, 2001: p. 64).

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1995 and 1997 were years of wide changes in approaches. In 1995, at the COP-1 in Berlin (first conference of the parties) the US agreed on the Berlin Mandate which consisted in recognizing that ‘developed countries must take the lead in combating climate change’, ‘that their current non-binding commitments were inadequate’ and that ‘no new commitments would be imposed on the developing countries’ (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001: p.122) (Downie, 2013). This caused anger and frustration in the US Senate and a rampant perception of not being considered by the President (Hovi, Sprinz & Bang, 2010). Agreeing with the Berlin Mandate, the Clinton administration provided an initial strong ‘unilateralist’ message against the US domestic preferences over environmental topics. However, the administration soon realized the importance of changing such strategy.

In 1996, at COP-2 in Geneva, four-key elements in the negotiating position emerged: (1) the US took a strong position against legally binding emission reductions commitments over the short-term (such as before 2010) preferring long-terms; (2) the US opted for more flexibility in implementation, preferring multi-year targets; (3) President Clinton’s negotiating team insisted on including all GH sources and sinks with stronger compliance and verification mechanisms for the climate convention; (4) this point includes the evolution of the US point of view regarding the participation of developing countries: according to the new view, all countries (including developing countries) must participate to limit the emissions. This last point can be considered as to be the most important topic over which the Clinton administration had to fight:

the inclusion of developing countries in this fight against CC seemed to be of vital importance for the US Senate. This latter started to spread the message that without that point, the US should have never considered the signature and neither the ratification of any IEAs.

According to news reports, the previously accepted exclusion of developing countries during the 1995-COP-1 was not appreciated by US lobbyists and the Republican Congress (Jennings, 1998). This was indeed the element that obliged the Clinton administration to change and adjust the approach, retracting the previous position (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001). The green dream of the administration was crushing, becoming clearly more and more unachievable.

In July 1997, the US Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel Resolution. The result was overwhelming:

95-0 vote and expressed reservation about the coming Kyoto agreement (Healy, 2000). The Byrd-Hagel Resolution affirmed that the Senate would not ratify any IEAs that can seriously harm the US economy, impose excessive costs on the US economy and that did not include restrictions on developing nations (Healey, 2000) (Harrison, 2007) (Hovi, Sprinz & Bang, 2010). This signaled another alarm bell and an even more realistic obstacle for the Clinton

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administration. As the Former Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Melinda Kimble affirmed: ‘Byrd-Hagel polarized the relationship between the administration and Congress on climate change’ (Royden, 2002: p.

22). Technically, the Byrd-Hagel was a non-binding instrument, but considering it was passed by the unanimity (a 95-0 vote), passing the Kyoto Protocol with that internal condition would have meant to change the minds of at least 67 Senators (Hovi, Sprinz & Bang, 2010). Basically, for the Clinton administration, it was complicated already before starting.

The Byrd-Hagel line of opposition was even joined by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (a coalition of coal and coal-fired utilities, which had an even more strident approach), and by other manufacturing industries (Department of State FOIA, 1997).

All these elements demonstrate the extremely complicated conflictual situation which the Clinton administration faced before the Kyoto negotiations: on the one hand, the international unanimous request of developed industrialized countries to take the lead all together without really including developing countries in this fight against CC (and the interest of the Clinton administration to follow this green path). On the other hand, the harsh unanimous US Senate’s hostility, which declared a total opposition against expensive IEAs and a Kyoto Protocol not including binding requests for developing countries. The administration realized to be in a very delicate scenario: there was a great need to create a strategy in order to go ahead with the project trying to please both sides.

The Kyoto negotiations were getting closer, and on October 22, 1997, President Clinton, publicly announced in a speech with the National Geographic the main official intentions of the administration: (1) the US ‘would propose that industrialized countries commit to the binding and realistic target of returning to emissions of 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012’; (2) the US ‘would embrace flexible mechanisms for meeting these limits’; (3) the US ‘would not assume binding obligations unless key developing nations meaningfully participate in this effort’ (Royden, 2002: p. 437) (Harrison, 2007) (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001). The US negotiator S. E. Eizenstat, later in an interview in November 1997 elaborated what the Clinton administration meant by the term meaningful participation from developing countries. For the US it meant ‘the wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis, and the biggest emitters assume, over a reasonable period of time, binding commitments. They do not necessarily have to be the same commitments as the developed world is taking’ (Royden, 2002: p. 437).

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With that third point, President Clinton emphasized that participation by developing countries would have been a pre-condition for the US to sign any treaty (Agrawala & Andersen, 2001).

These declarations are useful to note how the administration, in October 1997 was trying to warn the international community about the strict internal ties which was experiencing.

Moreover, what seems interesting is also the fact that these declarations just refer to the step of the signature of the Protocol and not further. The administration also informed the industry sector about what it would have put on the table of Kyoto and what target it would seek (with the plan of a permit-based trading system) (Royden, 2002). ‘The administration also told Congress it would seek the participation of developing countries and conduct economic analyses, as called for in the Byrd-Hagel Resolution’ (Royden, 2002: p. 439).

The last step was then going to Kyoto: the US only needed to get the rest of the world on board with its proposals.