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Alaska GOP-Controlled House Votes More Bureaucracy, Endorses Law of the Sea Treaty and UN Control

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State House Bill 1 (HB1) was ramrodded through a Juneau floor vote on Friday with a strong push from the rural Bush Caucus. Many legislators didn’t know it was coming up for a floor vote until the night before and felt rushed to study it in a manner that brought back memories of Nancy Pelosi’s railroading through of the Affordable Care Act when she said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

If HB1 is passed by the State Senate in its current form and signed into law, it can cause a host of problematic consequences for the citizens of Alaska and United States Sovereignty as a whole. First, it will add additional layers of state bureaucracy at a time when the Alaska Legislature is bleeding the annual GDP of a small seafaring nation by spending over $6B with only $2B in revenue largely because we already have over 24k state employees we can’t afford now. Adding more state employees and red tape to further moribund our natural resource development does not make economic sense. Secondly, it sends a clear message to President Obama and the United States Senate that Alaska residents support the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty which would cede U.S. sovereignty and wealth to a UN organization!

This bill is heavily reminiscent of the attempt to create the Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program (ACZMP) with Ballot Measure Prop 2 back in 2012. It looks like the spirit of this has been re-crafted into this bill to circumvent the will of the Alaskan voters who trounced Prop 2 at the polls.

Growing state bureaucracy typically results in increased delays and costs, while resulting in poorer decision making in the end. As far as the arctic goes, development and research efforts are presently underway through the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission that already consists of plenty of “seats at the table.”

By far though the greatest logic blunder in HB1 is the Alaska GOP House support for the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty (see subpart E on page 3 line 27 of the Bill). If the U.S. Senate were to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, it would reduce Alaska’s “bargaining position at the table” as it were and cede this to a U.N. organization known as the ‘ISA’ or International Seabed Authority. The Law of the Sea Treaty includes some very disturbing elements. It would compromise our national defense capabilities and require the redistribution of wealth from the US Treasury to undeveloped countries, some of which intensely dislike us and are state sponsors of terrorism!

If our legislators took the time to poll Alaskans, they would soundly reject the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty provision expressed in HB1 by a margin larger than our state coastline. Alaskans by in large are not fans of the United Nations and HB1 is a sneaky way of circumventing both their views and the results of Ballot Prop 2 that soundly rejected the Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program in 2012.

This bill now proceeds to the State Senate where it must be killed. When state legislators vote contrary to the will of the majority of Alaskan citizens on not one voter issue but two, they arise the heat of the electorate which could melt the very thin ice they are treading on.

Here’s how the recent vote went:

Yeas: Chenault, Claman, Colver, Drummond, Foster, Gara, Gruenberg, Guttenberg, Hawker, Herron, Hughes, Johnson, Josephson, Kawasaki, Keller, Kito, Kreiss-Tomkins, Millett, Munoz, Neuman, Olson, Ortiz, Pruitt, Reinbold, Saddler, Seaton, Stutes, Talerico, Tarr, Thompson, Tilton, Wool.

Nays: Gattis, Wilson.

Excused: Edgmon, LeDoux, Lynn, Nageak, Tuck, Vazquez.

Click HERE for text of the bill.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Barack Obama Turning Over Control Of U.S. Oceans To The United Nations

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Photo Credit: Bing

Photo Credit: Bing

It seems there is just too much on the plate of our current president, Barack Obama. With so many duties to fulfill, it appears he’s having trouble keeping up. Just to take care of one task, he neglects another and it is starting to split the American people even more. Just here on The Inquisitr, we reported how Obama is somewhat avoiding the situation at the Texas border. This includes two trips in which the first he avoided the border completely and the second, he “talked” about the border’s problem of illegal immigration. In the end, it looks like all he wanted to do was kick back, shoot pool, and drink beer in Denver.

Now reports are coming in that Barack Obama is renewing his efforts for the U.S. to join the Law of the Sea Treaty which was enforced by the United Nations. Summarized, Obama is turning over control of U.S. oceans to the U.N.

According to an article by Truth and Action, the United States is no stranger when it comes to this treaty by the United Nations. For the last 30 years, the U.S. has refused to be a part of this, but with Barack Obama at the presidential seat, it looks like we might surrender our U.S. sovereignty of our oceans. This can actually be very bad for the United States in general, especially for business. On the outside, it looks as if handing over the U.S. ocean’s control to the U.N. means that they have control of the world’s seas but this will also allow the U.N. to tax American citizens and companies just for using the seas.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller: Sullivan and Treadwell’s LOST History ‘Deeply Troubling’

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Republican US Senate Candidate Joe Miller today addressed his primary opponents’ history of support for the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

“I find my opponents’ history of support for this naked power grab by our would-be global governors at the United Nations deeply troubling,” Miller said. “It is simply not enough that Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan are running from their records during a hotly contested senate election.” 

Miller continued, “I could never support a treaty that surrenders the sovereignty of the people of the United States and empowers the United Nations, for the first time, to directly tax and regulate our citizens. Freedom from the arbitrary decrees of unaccountable rulers is the very reason we fought the Revolutionary War. Why should we voluntarily submit to such a regime in our time?”

Dan Sullivan has been described in the Anchorage Daily News as “a strong advocate in government meetings, congressional testimony and public speeches on the importance of U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

In a speech delivered at the 2007 Arctic Energy Summit in Anchorage, Sullivan praised Senator Murkowski for her “leadership on [Arctic] issues, particularly the Law of the Sea ratification.” He further stressed that “updating our Arctic policy will involve working closely with Congress on a variety of issues, including U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

Sullivan went on to say that “avoiding nationalistic policies and sovereignty conflicts” should be a high priority, and stressed the need for “a global community working toward common global interests.”

Mead Treadwell also has a long history of support for ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

In a speech before the Juneau World Affairs Council in 2011, Treadwell stated unequivocally that “international cooperation in the Arctic must be strengthened — with the force of both international law and ratification of the Law of the Sea.”

The Alaska Dispatch described Treadwell’s advocacy for LOST in a 2012 story: 

“Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is doing his part to keep it on the table. Although he says he has concerns about the treaty, Treadwell, who has a long history of working for the treaty and for Arctic issues, has worked diligently toward passage. He has testified repeatedly in front of Congress, regularly partakes in the State Department-chaired monthly Arctic Policy Group meeting, attends conferences where the treaty is discussed, and leads Alaska in its representation to the Arctic Council, where the Law of the Sea is the agreed-upon legal framework for resolving Arctic issues.”

Joe Miller concluded, “Both candidates’ meager efforts to back away from their past, hardline backing of LOST are likely to be seen by increasingly skeptical Alaskan voters as election-year pandering.”

Alaska’s Senators Murkowski and Begich Both Complain that there is “Stubborn Opposition” in US Senate to Law of the Sea Treaty

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Photo Credit: L.C. Smith and S.R. Stephenson, PNASAt a meeting in Washington last week, top U.S. Arctic officials at the Coast Guard, Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other agencies acknowledged that the U.S. lags behind other nations in dealing with the rapidly changing Arctic environment. The agencies are facing serious deficiencies in the ability to map the sea floor and develop enforceable environmental policies, as well as construct onshore infrastructure that would be used for search and rescue and oil recovery operations…There is also a big void in diplomacy, and how the U.S. will deal with other countries on issues involving the Arctic.

The U.S. has not ratified the United Nations agreement that irons out how countries make claims to offshore Arctic resources. That’s despite the agreement having the overwhelming support of the military and both political parties.

Ratification of the treaty, which is known as the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, has been a top priority for national security officials for several years, but it remains stalled in the Senate due to a handful of senators’ concerns that it would compromise U.S. sovereignty…

[US Navy Oceanographer Rear Admiral Jonathan] White and others said the U.S. needs to ratify UNCLOS by 2015, when the U.S. takes over the rotating two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council. Otherwise, he said, the country will speak with a weaker voice as Council president, since the U.S. is the only Arctic Council member nation that has not ratified the treaty. Such a scenario would be “sort of like driving a bus without a driver’s license,” he said.

Senator Murkowski, and fellow Alaskan, Sen. Mark Begich (D), who also addressed the conference, said they hope to try again to get the treaty through the Senate in the coming year, but that there is still some stubborn Senate opposition to it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Murkowski wants to sneak through Law of the Sea Treaty in lame duck session this fall

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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says she’s hopeful that the Law of the Sea Treaty will pass Congress in the lame-duck session after the election, despite the fierce opposition of some conservatives.

Murkowski told The Associated Press the sea treaty will have better prospects in the Senate when the fall campaign is over. The global maritime pact would establish de facto rules for the nation’s oceans, and business interests say it will create opportunities for offshore drilling.

“This is a treaty that I believe very strongly will contribute not only to our national security, but will allow us a level of certainly in accessing our resources in the north,” Murkowski said.

Murkowski and Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) both support the treaty, and Murkowski has championed several other efforts to tap the state’s natural resources. The untapped deepwater oil and natural gas off Alaska’s coast could be a significant economic boon for The Last Frontier and the entire nation, she and many of her Republican colleagues argue.

“I don’t want us, as an Arctic nation, to abandon those opportunities, and we would be doing that if we fail to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty,” Murkowski said.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Chamber: Law of the Sea Treaty Will Pass

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The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce– the nation’s premier group representing business interests — said Thursday that he believes the U.S. Senate will pass the Law of the Sea Treaty during its next session.

Despite Tom Donahue’s prediction, the international treaty has been languishing in the Senate for three decades. Just last month, a total of 34 Republican senators went on record as opposing the treaty — and since a two-thirds vote of the Senate is needed to pass it, the treaty seemed as dead as ever.

Donahue told a breakfast of the American Security Project, a bipartisan think tank, that he believes some of those Republicans will change their minds, although it’s hard for them to align themselves with the nation’s top Democrat during a presidential election year.

According to Donahue, passing the treaty is vital to America’s economic and security interests. He says that without it, the United States will not have a seat at the table when it comes to developing offshore oil and gas beyond its 200-mile territorial limit.

Alaska Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski both welcomed the news, although a spokesperson for Begich seemed doubtful that Republicans could manage such an about-face.

But Murkowski, a moderate Republican, said she thought such a turnaround could indeed take place. She says that modifcations to the treaty have made it a much better deal for the U.S., and that it would be foolish for the U.S. not to adopt the updated version of the treaty.

“We have been doing serious mapping off the coast of Alaska off our northern waters,” Murkowski said. “And (the treaty provides) the opportunity to claim an area about the size of the state of California, that we could effectively annex as part of an area that would be able to control.”

More conservative Republicans disagree including Joe Miller, Murkowski’s former rival for her Senate seat.

“To transfer two-thirds of the earth’s surface over to the governance of the United Nations is just a crazy thought,” Miller said Thursday. “And whether or not there’s some short-term economic benefit, (it) is a terrible thing to do, if you love this country and are really supporting its continued sovereignty.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DeMint and Inhofe: U.N. treaties mean LOST U.S. sovereignty, Liberals intent on imposing backdoor globalism

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For years, liberals and misguided State Department officials have pushed for the U.S. Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). This treaty would convey ownership of the oceans to a United Nations agency and give international bureaucrats veto authority over U.S. naval operations and could force the United States to comply with international carbon emissions caps.

Last week, we defeated LOST by securing commitments to ensure it cannot gain the 67 votes needed for ratification.

However, no sooner had the 34th Republican senator signed a letter opposing LOST than the surrender of American sovereignty was put back on the table by foreign diplomats and their internationalist allies in the federal government.

With LOST dead, the new treaties being promoted to take its place include the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Disabled, which calls for government agents to supersede the authority of parents of disabled children and even covers abortion. Also, the Obama administration has begun negotiations on a new U.N. treaty to create international gun control rules that could slowly erode our Second Amendment.

The globalist ideologues behind these treaties are either ignorant of or hostile to the universal human experience that problems are best solved by the people and institutions closest to them. So assured are these masters of their mandate to direct the lives and wealth of other people that they see their routine failures to do so efficiently at the local, state and national level merely as reason to ascend to new heights of international command and control.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

Law of the Sea Treaty, Supported by Alaska’s Governor, Lt. Governor & Congressional Delegation, now DOA

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The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty now has 34 senators opposed to it and thus lacks the Senate votes needed for U.S. ratification, a key opponent of the treaty announced Monday.

But the treaty’s main Senate proponent denies the treaty is sunk, saying plenty of time still exists to win support before a planned late-year vote.

The Law of the Sea Treaty, which entered into force in 1994 and has been signed and ratified by 162 countries, establishes international laws governing the maritime rights of countries. The treaty has been signed but not ratified by the U.S., which would require two-thirds approval of the Senate.

Critics of the treaty argue that it would subject U.S. sovereignty to an international body, require American businesses to pay royalties for resource exploitation and subject the U.S. to unwieldy environmental regulations as defined.

The list of treaty opponents has been growing, and on Monday, Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican and a leader of efforts to block it, announced that four more Republicans have said that they would vote against ratification: Sens. Mike Johanns of Nebraka, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio and Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit:  Department of Defense