Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Friday, Apr. 09, 2004

"Absolutely!" the Reagan administration official responded when the issue was raised by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who advanced the debate to new ground by noting that air travel involves motion above the seas which cover two-thirds to three-quarters of the earth's surface.

State Department Counsel William Howard Taft IV confirmed Inhofe's interpretation of the treaty's reach "over and under the water." It was Kirkpatrick who went a step further, and said space exploration could be affected, as well.

Appearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kirkpatrick testified she was "surprised" the widely hailed 1994 amendments to LOST "did not alter" the treaty's threat to U.S. rights to make decisions in its own interests without foreign interference.

That runs counter to the claims of treaty advocates that the '94 alterations took care of President Reagan's objections in 1982. Twelve years later, President Clinton was hoping for Senate ratification in the nineties, but then the voters altered that script when they put the Republicans in control of Congress.

Those amendments during the Clinton administration and the tenure of his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright "have an uncertain legal status [separate] from the treaty itself," according to Kirkpatrick. She noted other nations can put their own interpretations on them.

Moreover, she told the senators -- and by extension an entire nation getting a full dose of sky-high gasoline prices at the pump-that one of President Reagan's concerns about LOST back in the eighties was that it "could encourage the proliferation of OPEC," which just this year announced it was cutting back on oil production. That in turn threatens even higher gasoline prices for the summer vacation season and also could slow down the economic recovery.

Taft and Admiral Vernon Clark, Chief of Naval Operations told the hearing that U.S. sovereignty was not threatened because this nation could "opt out" of the treaty any time it chose to do so.

Slim Chances

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., dismissed that argument out of hand, saying "chances of doing that are very slim." No doubt the lawmaker was thinking of President Bush's decision that the U.S. would "opt out" of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. That rare action came only after an international uproar of unprecedented proportions, even though the only other signatory to the ABM Treaty-the Soviet Union-no longer existed.

Admiral Clark said he "fully supports" LOST because it would enable the U.S. to be in a position of leadership "to shape the future" in dealing with the treaty signatories; would provide us with the necessary tools to protect the American people and their maritime interests; would enable him to "go where I need to go to operate the Navy;" and would make it possible to challenge nation-states so as to "keep us from needlessly putting [men and women of the Navy] in harm's way."

Kirkpatrick, Inhofe and others disputed these claims, saying they ignored the loopholes and the threats to U.S. security.

One of the interested parties to the treaty, Liyu (Laurie) Wang, First Secretary of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China, attended the hearing as an observer. She told NewsMax.com her government was hoping the U.S. would "sign up" so that all nations can have a standard by which to settle disputes. Communist China has cited LOST to challenge the U.S. right to interdict a ship approaching its shores that it regards as "suspicious."

Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., though favoring the Law of the Seas Treaty, was respectful of those with opposing views, unlike his tantrum two weeks ago at another hearing on LOST. That session was chaired by Senator Inhofe's Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Armed Services, in fact, is the third Senate panel to examine this highly controversial treaty. The Foreign Relations Committee, under the chairmanship of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., rammed through approval of the document with no testimony from opponents.

And it may not be the last committee to consider the document either. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans., a member of Warner's panel, said the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, of which he is chairman, may also hold its own hearing.

"That very well may he in order," he told his colleagues.

Editor's note: