Climate Change Guru May Be Special ‘Envoy of Disappointment,’ Critic Charges

From CNSNews.com

Signaling a departure from the Bush administration’s environmental policies, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has named Todd Stern as special envoy for climate change and vowed that America will “vigorously pursue negotiations, those sponsored by the United Nations, and those at sub-global, regional, and bilateral level that can lead to binding international climate agreements.” In his acceptance speech on Monday, Stern, a veteran of the Clinton administration, also foreshadowed the United States signing on to international environmental treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol. “The time for denial, delay, and dispute is over,” Stern said. “The time for the United States to take up its rightful place at the table is here.” But William Yeatman, an energy policy analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market group, said Stern and the State Department cannot act unilaterally to approve global agreements. “No international agreement is going to be binding. No treaty is going to be binding unless the Senate were to approve it,” Yeatman told CNSNews.com, adding that the Senate has a history of voting against legislation that agrees to environmental standards that could harm the U.S. economy....