Obama Attacks Senate GOP For Pointing Out Problems With His Iran Deal & Climate Regulations

Today for Washington, D.C. - April 13, 2015
The House is to reconvene at 2 PM today.  No bills or votes are expected to be considered until 4PM

The Senate will reconvene at 2 PM today. At 5:30 PM, the Senate will vote on the nomination of Alfred Bennett, to be United States district judge for the Southern District of Texas.

According to the AP, “President Barack Obama said Saturday that partisan wrangling over the emerging nuclear agreement with Iran and on other foreign policy matters has gone beyond the pale, singling out two senior Republican senators for particularly harsh criticism. ‘It needs to stop,’ he declared. Obama complained that Sen. John McCain of Arizona had suggested that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's explanations of the framework agreement with Iran were ‘somehow less trustworthy’ than those of Iran's supreme leader. . . .

“McCain returned the criticism, arguing in a statement that the discrepancies between the U.S. and Iranian versions of the deal extended to inspections, sanctions relief and other key issues. ‘It is undeniable that the version of the nuclear agreement outlined by the Obama administration is far different from the one described by Iran's supreme leader,’ McCain said in a statement.”

Of course, the president is not being particularly charitable in his characterization of criticism of the deal he announced with Iran last week. The Wall Street Journal editors push back, reminding him, “Remember when Senator Barack Obama assailed President George W. Bush for exceeding his presidential powers? In the twilight days of his own Presidency, Mr. Obama is speaking and acting as if he can determine U.S. foreign policy all by his lonesome.”

They write, “[T]he President took umbrage that anyone would disagree with his unilateral forays on Cuba, Iran and climate change. He was especially annoyed at Senator John McCain for daring to point out that Secretary of State John Kerry’s interpretation of his ‘framework’ nuclear accord differs substantially with that of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

“‘That’s not how we’re supposed to run foreign policy, regardless of who’s President or Secretary of State. We can have arguments, and there are legitimate arguments to be had. I understand why people might be mistrustful of Iran. I understand why people might oppose the deal—although the reason is not because this is a bad deal per se, but they just don’t trust any deal with Iran, and may prefer to take a military approach to it,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘But when you start getting to the point where you are actively communicating that the United States government and our Secretary of State is somehow spinning presentations in a negotiation with a foreign power, particularly one that you say is your enemy, that’s a problem. It needs to stop.’

“Now, as it happens,” the WSJ editors explain, “the Ayatollah is the one who first said that the Obama Administration was spinning what was in the framework. Mr. McCain then said he was inclined to believe the Ayatollah more than Mr. Kerry, who ‘tried to come back and sell a bill of goods.’ . . .

“The Supreme Leader contradicted Messrs. Kerry and Obama on two specific and crucial points—stressing that U.N. inspectors would have no access to Iran’s military sites and that sanctions must be lifted right away. Asked in Panama about Mr. Khamenei’s remarks, Mr. Obama dismissed them as posturing: ‘It’s not surprising to me that the Supreme Leader or a whole bunch of other people are going to try to characterize the deal in a way that protects their political position.’

“So,” as the editors summarize the president’s position, “what the Ayatollah says doesn’t matter, but American critics should shut up because all they want is war.”

It wasn't only Sen. McCain that President Obama demanded stop criticizing him, though. The AP reports, “Clearly irked by aggressive pushback from the strengthened Republican majority in Congress, Obama also singled out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for criticism, saying the Kentucky Republican had been ‘telling the world’ not to have confidence that the U.S. can meet its own climate change goals. McConnell has been urging U.S. states not to comply with Obama's power plant rules, and arguing that the U.S. could never meet Obama's target even if those rules do survive.”

Certainly, Leader McConnell has been pointedly critical of the president’s EPA regulations and commitments to foreign nations about shutting down coal power plants in the United States, which add up to a war on coal, costing American jobs and likely to raising electricity prices for families and businesses.

In a letter to all 50 governors last month, Leader McConnell asked them to “carefully review the consequences before signing up for this deeply misguided plan. I believe you will find, as I have, that the EPA’s proposal goes far beyond its legal authority and that the courts are likely to strike it down. All of which raises the very important question of why the EPA is asking states at this time to propose their own compliance plans in the first place.

“This proposed plan is already on shaky legal grounds, will be extremely burdensome and costly, and will not seriously address the global environmental concerns that are frequently raised to justify it. Moreover, declining to go along with the administration’s legally dubious plan will give the other two branches of government time to address the proposal and will not put your state at risk in the interim. It will provide time for the courts to rule on whether the EPA’s proposed rule is legal, and it will give Congress a chance to address numerous concerns surrounding this latest power grab by the EPA.”

Later, responding to President Obama’s announced determination to bind US emissions to a global climate agreement, Leader McConnell said, “Even if the job-killing and likely illegal Clean Power Plan were fully implemented, the United States could not meet the targets laid out in this proposed new plan. Considering that two-thirds of the U.S. federal government hasn't even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it, our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal.”

As the WSJ editors say, apparently the president thinks he alone gets to weigh in on these policies. But Congress has a constitutional role to play in foreign policy, especially on any binding agreements, and both Congress and the judiciary have a responsibility to review the administration’s dubious EPA regulations.

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