Obama’s treatyish climate agreement

The Times reported last week that President Obama plans to negotiate a non-legal climate agreement with other major emitters so as to avoid a Senate vote that would otherwise be required for a “treaty.” The treaty obligations are somehow both “voluntary” (for the benefit of the Senate audience) and “legally binding” (for the benefit of Obama’s constituents). Times reporters now routinely state that the president is “circumventing Congress” whenever he does something on his own, whether or not the Constitution, precedent, or statutes gives him the authority to do so. So I wrote this Slate piece to explain that President Obama’s approach was not unconstitutional, or even particularly notable. Presidents can make agreements with foreign countries and then engage in parallel play with foreign leaders–conforming to the agreements to the extent they have independent authority to do so. They have done so for decades if not centuries.

I expected that this latest development would be additional grist for the mill of Obama critics who think that he is a “domestic Caesar,” but the outrage seems to have been lost amid the general disintegration of international order.