Pat Tiberi Co-Sponsors Resolution to Prevent Signing Treaty in Copenhagen

Pat Tiberi isn’t the most successful legislator in Congress. Not by any realistic success metric. According to GovTrack Tiberi has only sponsored 25 bills in the past 9 years. 19 of them never even made it out of committee and only 2 were actually passed.

Two bills in nine years. That’s a pretty embarrassing statistic.

He has, however, signed on to hundreds of bills as a co-sponsor. Including one introduced yesterday by Rep. Doug Lamborn [R-CO5]: House Resolution 945.

Lamborn’s resolution attempts to prevent the US from signing any treaty at the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit that would “compromise American sovereignty by requiring the United States to submit to decisions of international inspection, compliance, and enforcement mechanisms”.

Lamborn’s requirements would pretty much exclude us from signing any treaty ever written. The whole point of a treaty is to get two or more parties to agree to COMPLY with a set of rules. What’s the point of having a treaty when one party refuses to even comply with it?

Fortunately this resolution, like almost everything Tiberi has sponsored, will never make it out of committee. But it’s still disappointing to hear that this crappy resolution was introduced and co-sponsored by Tiberi and a bunch of other house members, including Bob Latta.

And just as we are finally about to move pass the unnecessary drama of Kyoto Protocol ratification.

If you don’t remember, take a look at this:

That’s a map of the world showing the countries who have signed on to the Kyoto treaty (in green) and the ones who haven’t (in red/gray). The U.S., in red, is the only country who decided to never sign the treaty. And in doing so we joined the ranks of other great nations who have not ratified it (in gray). Nations like Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

President Bush had a reputation as an ignorant cowboy unwilling to work with the international community and the whole Kyoto failure just helped reinforce that. It was a major embarrassment for the U.S. – one that Tiberi and his pals seem to want to repeat.

And I again wonder: how the fuck does a guy like Tiberi keep getting reelected to congress?