Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Democratic predecessors, including increased food and development aid.
The administration sought to use the traditional organ of the State Depart-
ment— and its quasi-independent subagencies, the U.S. Agency for Inter-
national Development (USAID), the U.S. Information Agency (USIA),
and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (USACDA)— to
promulgate Clinton's foreign aid policies. Conservative members of Con-
gress, however, objected to unnecessary spending that threatened the dual
conservative precepts of limited government and free markets. After the
Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 mid-
term elections, conservatives found that they had the power to push their
conservative principles.
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Constitutionally, Congress itself does not have the power to make
foreign policy; rather, its directive is to provide advice and give consent
to the president on presidential initiatives. What Congress does have
direct control over is the budget of the State Department. Coupled with
a broad interpretation of “advise and consent,” this budgetary oversight
has enabled Congress to massage its advisory role into real power, and
select legislators have consequently exercised significant influence over
American foreign policy throughout the nation's history.
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As chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee beginning in 1995,
North Carolina senator Jesse Helms took his role as a foreign policy mas-
seur seriously. He flatly refused to submit a State Department budget to the
Office of Management and Budget for approval until the State Department
had been severely reduced in size, its policymaking autonomy curtailed.
Among other things, Helms demanded that the administration excise the
agencies that traditionally carried out aid-oriented policy, particularly
USAID. The result was a two-year standoff during which the State Depart-
ment was granted only enough emergency funding to carry out its most
basic diplomatic functions, until it trimmed enough fat to satisfy Helms's
committee. For Helms, one piece ripe for the trimming was Secretary of
State Warren Christopher's new focus on promoting sustainable devel-
opment.
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The standoff lasted until 1996—less than a year before Kyoto
negotiations began— and the episode set the tone for climate mitigation
debates that themselves would largely revolve around development.
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It was within this context of foreign policy limbo that the Senate used
its “advise and consent” mandate to create another wrinkle in the politics
of the Kyoto Protocol. Led by Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and
