Freedom Line Blog

This is a big win for those who don’t want to see the United Nations’ grow in both power and resources. From the Daily Caller:

With 34 Republican senators now opposing a United Nations effort to regulate international waters, the Law of the Sea treaty effectively has no way forward in the U.S. Senate.

Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Johnny Isakson of Georgia joined 30 other GOP members in agreeing to vote against the U.N. treaty.

For guidance as to why this was the right decision, one need look no further than an op-ed penned by former Attorney General Edwin Meese earlier this year in the Los Angeles Times:

President Reagan so strongly opposed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that he didn’t just not sign the treaty. He very publicly refused to sign it. He also dismissed the State Department staff that helped negotiate it. And in case anyone didn’t get the message, he sent special envoy Donald Rumsfeld on a globe-trotting mission to explain his opposition and urge other nations to follow suit.

…

In a 1978 radio address titled “Ocean Mining,” he asserted that “no nat[ional] interest of ours could justify handing sovereign control of two-thirds of the Earth’s surface over to the Third World.” He added: “No one has ruled out the idea of a [Law of the Sea] treaty — one which makes sense — but after long years of fruitless negotiating, it became apparent that the underdeveloped nations who now control the General Assembly were looking for a free ride at our expense, again.”

This was exactly what was at stake here. Passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty would have given United Nations bureaucrats a veto over American deep-sea mining efforts, redistributed royalties from American energy development to other nations, and even created the potential for back-door international carbon regulation through the treaty’s requirements for mandatory dispute resolution.

Senate Republicans did the responsible thing — they won one for the Gipper.

Apparently, the media – and I – misread Mike Huckabee’s remarks to South Carolina Tea Party members as an endorsement of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  Here’s a fuller quote of Huckabee’s answer to whether conservatives should stay home on Election Day 2012 if Romney is the Republican nominee:

“It would be real tragic if they stayed out. Mitt Romney may not be their first choice, but Mitt Romney every day of the week and twice on Sunday is going to be a much more effective president for issues that they care about than Barack Obama.”

In other news, one-time 2012 aspirant Senator John Thune (R-SD) did endorse Romney today in Iowa.  Even without Huckabee’s support, Romney is building up Beltway conservative bona fides with Thune and freshman Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) coming on board.