Jim Inhofe: “I am about to make a major announcement that I think is very significant and, hopefully, would give us more time to…”

“I am about to make a major announcement that I think is very significant and, hopefully, would give us more time to attend to some of the problem areas we are trying to attend to, such as the Defense authorization bill, sequestration, expiring tax cuts, and all the spending bills. The announcement I would make is that we now have a letter containing 34 signatures of those who say: If you bring up the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty this year, we would oppose it. So we actually have 35 such signatures. I want to make a couple of comments. I was going to talk for a little longer, but I know there are a lot of Senators wanting to get the floor. So I will try to do this in a shorter period of time. First of all, I have been involved in this treaty for a long period of time. Way back during the Reagan administration this treaty that was actually first negotiated back in the 1970s was defeated for a variety of reasons. A lot of people are saying the reasons Reagan opposed it at that time have been answered. That is just flat not true. Ambassador James Malone, who renegotiated the lost treaty during the Reagan administration, stated: All the provisions from the past that make such a [new world order] outcome possible, indeed likely, still stand. It is not true, as argued by some, and frequently mentioned, that the U.S. rejected the Convention in 1982 solely because of technical difficulties with part XI. That is the seabed mining portion of it.…”