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Don’t fund the Law of the Sea Treaty

February 12, 2008 | By Nathaniel Ward

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President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget includes a worrisome item: funding for the Law of the Sea Treaty.

» Take our poll: Should Congress fund the Law of the Sea Treaty even if it hasn’t been ratified?

Not only is this fiscally irresponsible—the Senate has yet to ratify the treaty, so taxpayers have no obligation to support it—but it bolsters an agreement that threatens American interests, Heritage expert Steven Groves explains.

“U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund non-existent obligations stemming from flawed treaties,” he argues. “LOST should not be ratified, much less funded prior to ratification.”

Groves, a fellow in Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, enumerates the serious flaws in the treaty:

LOST, among other things, creates yet another unaccountable and opaque international organization, sets a precedent for international taxation of U.S. companies, provides an avenue for international environmental regulation, and threatens U.S. sovereignty by subjecting the United States and U.S. companies to mandatory dispute resolution in international fora that have traditionally been stacked against U.S. interests.

Funding LOST would set a bad precedent and could pave the way for throwing money at all sorts of international boondoggles, Groves warns.

“The Administration has no business making a budget request directed at subsidizing organizations of which the United States is not a member,” he continues. “The United States is already obligated to supply billions of dollars in funding to dysfunctional and mismanaged international organizations such as the Untied Nations, the U.N. Development Program, and U.N. Peacekeeping Operations.”

School choice expands, kids benefit

More and more children are benefiting from school choice, Heritage education expert Dan Lips writes in a new in-depth analysis. Millions of students are taking advantage of programs like charter schools, public school choice and vouchers, reflecting a dramatic improvement in education options over the past two decades.

» Watch the video: Dan Lips explains school choice successes

But more can be done. Lips reports that “an estimated 74 percent of students remain in government-assigned public schools.”

To improve educational opportunities, he continues, federal and state policymakers should expand school choice options to more families. “If given the opportunity, many more children could benefit from school choice options.”

—Chris Albright

A step towards improved missile defense

Washington and Warsaw have agreed in principle to allow the United States to station 10 interceptors in Poland as part of an American missile defense system. 

» Watch the video: Sally McNamara on the Poland missile defense agreement

“A comprehensive missile defense system offers protection to America, its forward deployed troops, and its allies,” argue Peter Brookes and Sally McNamara. “The placement of interceptors in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic would bolster transatlantic security, protecting both the United States and Europe from the growing threat of long-range ballistic missiles and the unconventional payloads they may carry.”

Heritage was instrumental in urging the Reagan administration to take the first steps towards a missile defense system in the 1980s. In 1982, Heritage published a study titled “High Frontier” and presented it to President Reagan. Six months later, Reagan made his historic speech calling for a Strategic Defense Initiative to protect America.

—Chris Albright

Other Heritage work of note

  • On Monday, the federal government charged six men detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with crimes related to the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The Heritage Foundation has posted a roundup of research and other resources about detaining the enemy during wartime.
  • One of Heritage’s missions is to explain the importance of free enterprise to policymakers in the United States and around the world. To advance this mission, Heritage publishes the annual Index of Economic Freedom, which ranks the world’s countries on ten key measures. The Index’s impact is ongoing:Heritage recently learned that Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance is looking to improve the country’s ranking in the Index (93rd overall, with a score of 56.8 percent free) and to do so is examining why it scored so poorly.

In other news

  • Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has passed away at age 80. “He was an early supporter of the captive nations strategy, which was the concept that we should support people behind the Iron Curtain and recognize them as allies against communism,” Heritage scholar Lee Edwards told Front Page Magazine.
  • American taxpayers have been shucking out large sums to farmers in recent years on the grounds that the biofuels they produce are better for the environment than conventional oil. The New York Times reports that this may have been a false premise: “Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these ‘green’ fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.”
  • In order to compete in the upcoming summer games, British Olympians must pledge not to criticize the authoritarian Chinese Communist regime.
  • An Arizona judge has upheld an Arizona law cracking down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants. The plaintiffs had argued that immigration law was a federal responsibility.
  • Texas highway officials have introduced a plan to improve the state’s outdated highway system by collaborating with private enterprise to construct a series of toll roads.
  • A Canadian court has ruled that a child can legally have three parents: his father, his mother, and his mother’s same-sex partner.

Coming up at Heritage

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Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. Chris Albright contributed to this report.