Emails sent to Senators Johanns and Nelson:
Dear Senator Johanns/Nelson,
In regards to the UN Law of the Sea Treaty & Executive Order 13547 as well as the upcoming UN Treaty on Small Arms and our 2nd Amendment Rights: I fear that the President may try to bypass Congress and enforce the UN Treaty on Small Arms via Executive Order thus infringing on our Right to Keep and Bear Arms and forcing such an unconstitutional mandate on the people of this nation.
One of the jobs of the President of the United States is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…” (Art. 2, Section 3 Const.) However, when the President crosses over into creating law or directing the executive branch to act where no law has been authorized then the president has usurped power he does not have and thus has enacted an unconstitutional law – as I will show Barack Obama has done.
Article 1 of the Constitution vests all legislative power in the Congress. This means that the federal government cannot create law by any other means than through the legislative process. Any federal law that is created outside of its constitutional boundary is void – However; in many cases the executive branch will operate that law “as if” it were valid regardless of the law. This is what has happened 1 year ago and 99% of all Americas do not even know it has happened.
Before I get into the meat of this article I want to add one more piece of background information. Most people by now have heard of Presidential Executive Orders; these are directions given from the president to his departments telling them how he wants things to operate.
Remember, the President has the responsibility to ensure the laws of Congress are faithfully executed – so executive orders are a perfect way for him to delegate how he wants that done. This would be no different than the CEO of a company providing memos to department heads on the running of the corporation. But just like the President he cannot legally ask them to operate outside of the charter of the company for which the board of directors has established.
Many of you will also know that the Constitution establishes a means by which the nation can establish treaties with other nations. A bunch of our guys get with a bunch of their guys and we hammer out an agreement on a treaty to do certain things. It may be to limit the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles, it may be a trade treaty, it may be a border use treaty, it could be most anything. But the one thing they ALL have in common is that before they become the law of the land, even if signed by both parties, it must be ratified by 2/3rds of Senate.
Now back in the early 70’s the United Nations came up with a grand scheme to control all the seas of the world. It was their contention that what was in the sea belong to all of mankind and not to any company or country just because it was within a few miles of the countries land. So in an attempt to control the minerals, oil, gas, and other riches of the sea they came up with a plan called the Law of the Sea Treaty.
From 1973 to 1982 a group was created called the Law of the Sea Convention. This group hashed out everything from commercial fishing, mineral mining, oil exploration, etc. They even came up with this grand scheme to pay for this program and other by charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for the right to exploit any of these areas and then an additional yearly fee that could range as high as a million dollars for each year in business.
Although the United States has signed the treaty it has yet to be ratified and has been defeated each time it has been presented.
A few reasons for not ratifying the treaty and voiced by former President Ronald Reagan and current Representative Ron Paul are:
1. Loss of US sovereignty – once ratified America would be bound to abide by adjudications by the UN even if not in the best interest of the Nation.
2. Mandates large fees and profit sharing to the UN. The treaty requires a submission of an application fee of $500,000, and an allotment of an area in the site for the use of the UN’s own mining efforts. On top of the initial fees the licensee must pay an annual fee of $1 million, and a percentage of its profits.
3. The sole decision on whether to grant or withhold mining permits rests with the UN, which consists disproportionately of underdeveloped countries. There is also a voting scheme that allows blocking votes for US submissions even though the US has a permanent seat.
It always amazes me how Washington comes up with some of the most positive sounding names to bills and executive orders when they are damaging the Constitution. Enter Executive Order 13547, dated 19 July 2010, entitled “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes.” I mean, who doesn’t want to be good stewards to our waterways? But the real problem comes in what this order actually does as opposed to what the title says.
Now remember, an executive order cannot legally “create law,” that is reserved solely for the legislature, it can only direct how to best execute existing law. Secondly, there is nothing prohibiting the President from doing all the things identified in the “purpose” section of the executive order to protect and maintain the coastal waterways and Great Lakes. So why the obvious end-around of pushing this ‘law’ to do these things?
The opening statement in nearly all executive orders states: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America…,” This sentence establishes his authority to; in essence, create regulations on how to carry out the laws on the books as well as to direct the operation of the executive department.
A year earlier, 2009, President Obama directed the creation of the “Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force ” who was tasked to come up with a recommendation for how to best manage the ocean resources and waterway usages. Their final report read quite similarly to the, surprise -- surprise, Law of the Sea Treaty mandates.
Upon receiving the final recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force President Obama signed into law Executive Order 13547 and instituted a run around of the requirement to have all treaties ratified by the Senate and creating law outside of the legislature.
Under Section 2 – Policy – paragraph b (ii) – (iii) he is establishing the initial connection to ‘international law’ by stating his ‘policy’ is to be promoted by:
(ii) cooperating and exercising leadership at the international level;
(iii) pursuing the United States’ accession to the Law of the Sea Convention…
The Law of the Sea Convention is the body that is task with management of the program under the UN’s Law of the Sea treaty, which has not been ratified by our Senate, for the purpose of establishing control of the world’s seas.
Section 9 (c) states: “In carrying out the provisions of this order and implementing the Final Recommendations, all actions of the Council and the executive departments, agencies, and offices that constitute it shall be consistent with applicable international law, including customary international law, such as that reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention.” (Emphasis added.)
In this section I find it quite interesting that the President’s direction to the council was to be consistent with “applicable international law, including… the Law of the Sea Convention” but makes no mention of existing federal law. That is because the purpose of this Executive Order was to bypass federal law and enact an international treaty without the consent of the Senate. We know this to be true because he admits as much by directing them to use the actual UN law that is governed by the treaty. As with many liberal programs it is the ends that justify the means even if they are blatantly illegal.
To add insult to injury, as far as the people of this nation are concerned, this Executive Order was signed on July 19, 2010 and over a full year later we have heard absolutely nothing from any of our Congressman on taking Obama to task for doing this.
Senator Johanns/Nelson, why have you and the other Senators allowed Obama to make law and, in essence, ratify treaties without the advice and consent of the Senate? Perhaps if Senators no longer care about the rule of law perhaps we the people should no longer keep you in office. It is imperative that the Senate address this issue in order to safeguard our Constitutional rights as well as our national sovereignty. I urge you to call the President out on his unconstitutional actions and to demand that the President recall Executive Order 13547 and refrain from bypassing the Senate in this way in the future.
Sincerely,
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