Hansen says Paris agreement is "Fraud"

If a group of senators gets its way, any commitments President Obama makes at the Paris climate summit will be put to a congressional test. If given the opportunity, the Republican-led Senate would almost undoubtedly reject such a deal.

President Obama doesn’t plan to give it the chance. Whatever agreement emerges from Paris, he has no intention of submitting it to the Senate for ratification as a treaty. The administration argues that any agreement does not bind the United States to a course of action.

There are disadvantages to that approach: a new president could back away from the Obama climate plan. A treaty would bind all future presidents to comply with it.

“Every state controls whether that state is a party to a binding agreement, and in each case, that state’s intent controls,” said Michael Glennon, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee counsel. “The key word is intent: If the U.S. doesn’t intend to enter into a binding agreement and makes that intent explicit, then there will be no binding agreement that obliges the United States to do anything as a matter of law.”

“The bottom line is it’s not going to be a treaty,” Bledsoe said. “The United States is not going to agree to anything that requires Senate confirmation. And that’s that.”