DA Russia Sanctions

1NC
Obama has one-shot to secure sanctions against Russia but PC is key
Gvosdev 12/31/16 (Nikolas K. Gvosdev, a contributing editor at the National
Interest, is coauthor of U.S. Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy: The Evolution of an
Incidental Superpower, Russia Sanctions: What Will Congress Do?,
http://nationalinterest.org/print/feature/russia-sanctions-what-will-congress-do18910?page=2)//cmr
Obama
having concluded they possessed sufficient evidence against Russian cyber units to
definitively assign responsibility for hacks undertaken against U.S. political entities during the
recent presidential campaign, decided not to pass the buck to the incoming Trump
administration to decide what steps ought to be taken but instead went ahead with a series of
sanctions imposed against Russian diplomats, companies and agencies. Overriding the
Having assessed the evidence presented to it by the intelligence community, the outgoing
administration,

Kremlin's normal automatic bureaucratic response to immediately respond to Western actions with equivalent "tit
for tat" reactions, Vladimir Putin apparently decided against any public reaction. But while round one may be over,

the story is far from overand what happens in the next three weeks
between New Year's and the Inauguration may determine the fate of Donald
Trump's proposed outreach to Russia even before his administration takes office.
The sanctions imposed this past week are , as with others levied after the annexation of Crimea in
2014, promulgated on the basis of Presidential authority . As executive actions of the President,
they can be reversed by Donald Trump after taking office. Indeed, the mildness of the initial
Russian reaction suggests that some in the Kremlin expect that the new President would simply reverse the
decisions (such as requiring the Russian government to vacate diplomatic properties in Maryland and on Long
Island).

The challenge is now whether Republicans in the Congress who are skeptical both of
Russia's intentions and of the commitment of Trump's announced national security team to be tough on Putin will
join with Democrats and the outgoing administration to lock in Russia
sanctions by legislative action, making it far more difficult for Trump to lift
them by executive fiat. As with the Cuba and Iran sanctions that were written into the U.S. Code by
Congressional action (most notably in 1996) or with previous sanctions such as the Jackson-Vanick amendment,
codifying the existing Crimea, Ukraine and cyber sanctions into U.S. law would limit Trump's freedom of action vis-avis Russia by making it impossible for him to unilaterally lift sanctions without Congressional permission. Moreover,

once Congressional sanctions are in place, it becomes much harder to build

consensus to remove them, because Russia's domestic and international actions will always arouse the
ire of key constituencies in Congress. The decades-long battle to graduate Russia from the
Jackson-Vanik strictureseven though Russia was found to be in compliance with their mandates in the
early the 1990sacted as a limit on what Presidents Clinton and Bush could achieve with
Russia, since neither Chief Executive was willing to spend the political capital
needed to get Russia removed. President Obama was able to utilize a window when he had Congressional
majorities who wanted to support his diplomacy, but in the end had to promise to swap one set of sanctions for
another (in the Magnitsky Act).

If Congress locks in new sanctions on Russia , declines to give the President either the ability to
waive them on national security grounds or to determine when the conditions for lifting them has been met, and

it doesn't really
matter what Donald Trump, Rex Tillerson, Michael Flynn or anyone else thinks about
the utility of sanctions or even using the prospect of lifting them as a bargaining chip in
requires that lifting sanctions will occur only on the basis of a new Congressional vote, then

future dealings with the Kremlinbecause the power to do so will not be in their hands but in that of
Congress. The Trump administration would then be fighting a two-front struggle: trying to negotiate deals with
Russia (say, on the future of Ukraine) while at the same time seeing whether such bargains would be supported by
Congress for sanctions to be lifted or at least modified.

Russia is also counting

down the days to the new administration. As I have noted before, Russia is working to
"wrap up" various endgames, notably in Syria, prior to Trump taking the oath of office, so
as to present him with a series of faits accomplis. But there are enough advisors in the
Putin himself may have declined, so far, to respond to the newest sanctions, but

Russian foreign policy and defense establishment prepared to counsel Putin to be less accommodating if the U.S.
locks sanctions down in the coming weeks. They will advise against taking steps that would generate support for
removing U.S. sanctions in favor of pushing aheadwhether in Syria, Ukraine or the several critical elections that
will take place in Europe in 2017, especially in France and Germany. Indeed, if, as Ukrainian journalist (and one of
the original inspirations for the Maidan movement) Mustafa Nayyem worries that conditions for a counterrevolution
are building up, and if election results seat much more pro-Russian governments in Berlin and Paris, then by the end
of 2017 Russia could be able to erode the rare case of sustained trans-Atlantic and intra-European solidarity to
maintain sanctions against Russia without having to make significant concessions. Thus, Russia may be prepared, in
the next weeks, to engage in more actions likely to draw the ire of U.S. policymakers in both Congress and the
outgoing administration.
What happens will now depend on several factors. Are enough Republicans in Congress interested in constraining

would an outgoing Obama administration be

willing to use its last "lame duck" days in office to sign such legislation?
Trump's freedom of action on Russia, and

Would the Kremlin be willing to take concrete steps to demonstrate that it is prepared to make serious compromises

How these
questions are answered in the days ahead will determine whether Trump's
preference for better ties with Russia will be a stillborn hope come
Inauguration Day.
in order to give a Trump administration the maneuverability to improve U.S. relations with Moscow?

China engagement is controversial the plan creates

divisiveness and drains Oamas capital
McGregor 15 (Richard, staff @ Financial Times, 9/8, Hawks gain upper hand in US
policy on China, http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2015/09/hawks-gain-upper-hand-in-us-policyon-china/)

consensus which once reigned in Washington over the need to prioritise engagement
with China has disappeared this year. Now, mainstream members of the citys national
security establishment have begun to explicitly call for a more confrontational
approach. The debate in Washington in that respect is now starting to take on a similar tenor to that in Beijing,
where the hawks supportive of a harder line against the US have long dominated the
airwaves. Mr Obama has used China as a bogeyman to support backing in Congress
for an Asia-Pacific trade deal in a Congress which has long been leery of trade liberalatisation. Like most
The broad

occupants of the White House of whatever party, however, Mr Obamas rhetoric towards China is generally
restrained, certainly when compared with the posse of candidates battling to take his place in 2016. Hillary

Clinton has always struck a more hawkish tone on China than Mr Obama, and Beijing is not
thrilled at the prospect of her as president. But she has nothing on the mass of Republicans
competing to become the partys presidential candidate in 2016. Donald Trump has made an art form of
baiting China, even as he passes himself off on the side as somewhat of a scholar on the Middle Kingdom.
Trump suggested the state diner for Xi be replaced with Big Macs. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker went further,
and called for Xis visit to be cancelled altogether. They had nothing on Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who has
taken up the mantle of the partys leading hawk.

Accusing Mr Obama of appeasement, Mr Rubio

said if China pressed illegitimate territorial claimsI will not hesitate to take
action. The rush among Republican candidates to outflank Mrs Clinton, let alone the White House, and pile onto
China, though, is telling.

Congress k2 sanctions solves Russia aggression

Pascrell 12/19/16 (Bill, Member of Congress, Thank you very much for your
attention to this matter, https://pascrell.house.gov/media-center/pressreleases/rep-pascrell-says-congress-must-increase-russia-sanctions)//cmr
In light of Russian President Vladimir Putins continued meddling and aggression around the
globe, I encourage you to prioritize our national security in the 115th Congress . One
of the first items of business the Congress must consider next year is legislation to
further tighten economic sanctions against Russia. Earlier this year, the House of
Representatives unanimously passed the STAND for Ukraine Act to contain, reverse, and deter Russian aggression
in Ukraine; support the sovereignty of Crimea against Russias illegal annexation; and ultimately assist Ukraines
democratic transition. Advancing

this bill would be an important show of American

strength.

President Putins attempts to undermine global stability are boundless.

Russia has cultivated networks of patronage across Central and Eastern Europe in order to influence and direct
decision-making to serve the Kremlin's interests.

Russia has continued to violate Ukrainian

sovereignty by providing aid to separatists who attack Ukrainian military positions in Donetsk and Donbass,
resulting in civilian casualties. In a similar vein, Russia continues to support the Syrian Government
through its supply of ammunition and weapons, as well as its efforts to destroy opposition-controlled population

The clear intent of these actions is to preserve Syrian President Bashar

and his regime. Finally, U.S. intelligence clearly demonstrates that the Russian
Government directed an extensive breach of e-mails from U.S. citizens and
institutions, including U.S. political organizations, during our election. These actions threaten
our democratic institutions, national security, and sovereignty and warrant a swift,
strong response. As you know, the current sanctions on Russia were implemented in 2014
through executive orders relating to its actions in Ukraine. These sanctions serve as an
important tool to ensure Russia abandons its oppression at home and aggression
abroad, which is why I am so concerned that they could be easily undone with the stroke of a pen by a future
administration. The United States must send a clear message that we will not stand idly
by as President Putin bullies his neighbors, tests the commitment of NATO, and works
to fracture Western democracies. That is why it is critical for the Congress to pass the STAND for
zones and civilian infrastructure.
al-Assad

Ukraine Act. The STAND for Ukraine Act would codify the 2014 sanctions levied against Russia through executive
orders into U.S. law, making it more difficult for future administrations to unravel our efforts to deter President

legislation builds on existing sanctions and

sends a clear signal to Russia about the U.S.s commitment to this policy, just as we did
during the Soviet Unions decades-long occupation of the Baltic States. Maintaining strict sanctions on
Russia until it abandons its oppression at home and aggression abroad has always
been a source of bipartisan support , evidenced by the strong bipartisan passage of every piece of
legislation ramping up Russian sanctions. Now, more than ever, it is critical the United States
stand up to President Putin by sending a clear message that Russias aggression will
not be tolerated.
Putins aggression and disrespect for global order. This

Nuke war
Farmer 15 (Ben Farmer, Defense Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph, citing
General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, Deputy Commander of NATO Forces in Europe, and
former Director of British Special Forces, and Michael Fallon, Secretary of State for
Defence, member of the National Security Council, and Member of Parliament,
United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, NATO general: Russia
tensions could escalate into all-out war, Business Insider, 2-20-2015,
http://www.businessinsider.com/nato-general-russia-tensions-could-escalate-to-war2015-2)
Tensions with Russia could blow up into all-out conflict, posing an existential
threat to our whole being, Britains top general in Nato has warned. Gen Sir Adrian
Bradshaw, deputy commander of Nato forces in Europe, said there was a danger Vladimir
Putin could try to use his armies to invade and seize Nato territory, after calculating
the alliance would be too afraid of escalating violence to respond. His comments follow a clash between
London and Moscow after the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said there was a "real and present danger" Mr
Putin could try to destabilize the Baltic states with a campaign of subversion and irregular warfare. The Kremlin
called those comments absolutely unacceptable". Sir Adrian told the Royal United Services Institute there was a
danger such a campaign of undercover attacks could paralyze Nato decision making, as members disagreed over
how much Russia was responsible, and how to respond. Nato commanders fear a campaign of skilfully disguised,
irregular military action by Russia, which is carefully designed not to trigger the alliance's mutual defence pact. He

"resulting ambiguity" would make "collective decisions relating to the

appropriate responses more difficult". But Sir Adrian, one of the most senior generals
in the British Army and a former director of special forces , went further and said there
was also danger that Russia could use conventional forces and Soviet-era
brinkmanship to seize Nato territory. He said Russia had shown last year it could
generate large conventional forces at short notice for snap exercises along its
borders. There was a danger these could be used not only for intimidation and
coercion but potentially to seize Nato territory, after which the threat of escalation
might be used to prevent re-establishment of territorial integrity. This use of so
called escalation dominance was of course a classic Soviet technique. He went on to say that
the threat from Russia, together with the risk it brings of a miscalculation
resulting in a strategic conflict, however unlikely we see it as being right now,
represents an existential threat to our whole being. Nato has agreed to set up a rapid
reaction force of around 5,000 troops ready to move at 48 hours notice, in case of Russian
aggression in Eastern Europe. Supplies, equipment and ammunition will be stockpiled in bases in the
region. Alliance leaders hope the force will deter any incursion . David Cameron warned
said the

Vladimir Putin there will be more sanctions and "more consequences" for Russia if the ceasefire in Ukraine does not
hold. The Prime Minister vowed that the West would be "staunch" in its response to Russia and was prepared to
maintain pressure on Moscow "for the long term". He rejected the findings of a scathing parliamentary committee
report that the UK found itself "sleep-walking" into the crisis over Ukraine. The EU Committee of the House of Lords
found there had been a "catastrophic misreading" of mood by European diplomats in the run-up to the crisis. Earlier

Mr Fallon said the Russian president might try to test Natos resolve with
the same Kremlin-backed subversion used in Crimea and eastern Ukraine . A murky
this week,

campaign of infiltration, propaganda, undercover forces and cyber attack such as that used in the early stages of
the Ukraine conflict could be used to inflame ethnic tensions in Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia, he said. The military
alliance must be prepared to repel Russian aggression whatever form it takes, Mr Fallon said, as he warned that
tensions between the two were warming up. His comments were dismissed in Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry
spokesman said the country does not pose a threat to Baltic countries and accused Mr Fallon of going beyond
diplomatic ethics . Alexander Lukashevich said: "His absolutely unacceptable characteristics of the Russian
Federation remind me of last year's speech of US president Barack Obama before the UN general assembly, in

which he mentioned Russia among the three most serious challenges his country was facing. "I believe we will find
a way to react to Mr Secretary's statements."

Uniquness
Bipartisan support for sanctions now
Politic0 1-1-17

"Frankly though, in Congress we don't share that view. We think that

more has to be done," Schiff said. "We don't think that frankly the steps
that have been taken are enough of a deterrent. Youre going to see
bipartisan support in Congress for stronger sanctions against
Russia.

Links

Link China Engagement

China engagement is controversial Debate has shifted to
hawks
McGregor 15 (Richard, staff @ Financial Times, 9/8, Hawks gain upper hand in US
policy on China, http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2015/09/hawks-gain-upper-hand-in-us-policyon-china/)

consensus which once reigned in Washington over the need to prioritise engagement
with China has disappeared this year. Now, mainstream members of the citys national
security establishment have begun to explicitly call for a more confrontational
approach. The debate in Washington in that respect is now starting to take on a similar tenor to that in Beijing,
where the hawks supportive of a harder line against the US have long dominated the
airwaves. Mr Obama has used China as a bogeyman to support backing in Congress
for an Asia-Pacific trade deal in a Congress which has long been leery of trade liberalatisation. Like most
The broad

occupants of the White House of whatever party, however, Mr Obamas rhetoric towards China is generally
restrained, certainly when compared with the posse of candidates battling to take his place in 2016. Hillary

Clinton has always struck a more hawkish tone on China than Mr Obama, and Beijing is not
thrilled at the prospect of her as president. But she has nothing on the mass of Republicans
competing to become the partys presidential candidate in 2016. Donald Trump has made an art form of
baiting China, even as he passes himself off on the side as somewhat of a scholar on the Middle Kingdom.
Trump suggested the state diner for Xi be replaced with Big Macs. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker went further,
and called for Xis visit to be cancelled altogether. They had nothing on Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who has

Accusing Mr Obama of appeasement, Mr Rubio

said if China pressed illegitimate territorial claimsI will not hesitate to take
action. The rush among Republican candidates to outflank Mrs Clinton, let alone the White House, and pile onto
taken up the mantle of the partys leading hawk.

China, though, is telling.

Engagement is divisive Opinion leaders & the media spin

against the plan
Zhang 11 (Jiakun Jack, IR @ Duke U., American Perceptions, Chinese Realities: Roadmap for
Congress in 21st Century U.S.-China Relations,
http://cspc.nonprofitsoapbox.com/storage/Fellows2011/Zhang-_Final_Paper.pdf)

American elites-- politicians, business leaders, journalists, and academics etc -- are deeply divided
over China policy. As China embraced market reforms, many in the US came to romanticize a
business China that was thought to be capitalist just like us and many business leaders
and academics have presented a rosy picture of Chinas, rarely speaking out on controversial issues such as

elite
opinion that seeks to portray China in a positive light . They focus on Chinas booming
cities and growing middle class as evidence that China is becoming more like America and thus should
human rights (Gries 2004). Henry Kissinger and U.S.-China Business Council represent two types of

not be seen as threatening. This group, often referred to as red team, rarely speaks out against sensitive issues

As the same time, a bi-partisan alliance of politicians

and journalists has emerged to join together in China bashing and are collectively referred to
as blue team. Prominent figures on the left, like Nancy Pelosi, who criticize China for its
human rights abuses, have allied with conservative hawks on the right who fear
Chinas challenge to the United States. Until recently, journalists have tended to
overemphasize the darker aspects of experience in China, partly as a result of their
lack of access in China. However, this trend is changing as well as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
such as Taiwan, Tibet, or human rights.

becomes more adept at dealing with foreign correspondents. According to another SJTU survey7 , few journalists

working in China report getting harassed and most of them believe that working in China has become easier over
the years. This effect is compounded by the fact that American media coverage of China has grown tremendously in

media coverage on China has become

more diversified. However, once formed public opinions take time to change.
Congressional views towards China are the most distorted. A survey conducted by the
Committee of 100 found that Congressional staffers dramatically overestimate the
unaffordability of China compared to the American public . In 2007, 79% of
Congressional staffers surveyed felt unfavorable views towards China while only
35% of the American public agreed. Additionally, when asked to evaluate what the
general public felt about China, Congressional staffers seem to underestimate
positive attitudes towards China, they felt that 86% of the American public held unfavorable views
the 2000s. Thus because of market competition, the content of

towards China while the general public only felt that 45% of Americans held an unfavorable attitude towards China.
By contrast opinion leaders (journalists, public intellectuals, etc.) and business leaders held very similar views as
the public, 58% of both groups held positive attitudes towards China and 59% of the public also held favorable

members of Congress rely heavily on their staff to

provide them with information to inform their policy making decisions , this distortion
in Congressional staffers attitudes towards China is very troubling and goes a long
way to explain the negative campaigning and legislation emerging out of Congress
in recent years. As Chinas impact on the American economy continues to increase, it is crucial for
views towards China (C-100 Survey). The

Congressman to have an accurate appraisal of where the America people they are elected to represent actually
stand on this important issue.

Attacking Chinese engagement is politically powerful; support

is weak
Yang 10 (Jian, sr. lecturer in IR @ U of Aukland, Dealing with the U.S. Congress: Beijings
Learning Curve, Sino-American Relations: Challenges Ahead, edited by Yufan Hao, p. google
books)

China's rapidly expanding economy is

likely to continue to be a major source of frictions in Sino-American relations.
Congress has been active in pressuring the White House to adopt tougher
economic policies toward China in the past decade, particularly in the mid-2000s, so much so that
critics argued that members of Congress were looking for a scapegoat and
blaming all of the economic problems and loss of jobs in their districts on goods
coming from China. "There's no political downside to castigating China," said James
Sasser, a former Democratic senator and US ambassador to China, " and some political negative if
you defend China. Issues like trade deficit and intellectual property rights will
continue to haunt US economic relations with China in the coming years and
Congress will remain active on these issues. Political issues in general were not particularly
While the China market has become increasingly attractive,

important in the bilateral relationship under George W. Bush who was preoccupied with the US war on terror. In his
first year in office, President Barack Obama was preoccupied with the global financial crisis and political issues with
China were largely set aside. On Capitol Hill, issues such as human rights, political liberalization and Tibet are not as

There are
all sorts of human rights issues in China . One emerging issue is Internet censorship. Rep. Christopher
salient as they used to be. Nevertheless, they are still important issues in Congress's China agenda.

H. Smith, one of the most aggressive human rights activists in Congress and chairman of a House subcommittee on
human rights, has been a vocal critic of China on this particular issue." Notably, Congress appropriated about

China's
involvement in human rights issues in other countries can also be a source of
frictions. As mentioned earlier, Congress has been very critical of Chinese involvement in
Darfur. The salience of political issues is often amplified by interest groups
US$30 million for fiscal year 2010 to continue developing technology to circumvent Internet restrictions."

and Beijing will have to face numerous interest groups lobbying on Capitol
Hill. It is often alleged that Capitol Hill is improperly responsive to "special interests" in
those areas where Congress shows particular concern. Dan Carney noted in 2000 that:
Special interests from business lobbies to labor unions to citizen groups - a cacophony of
diverse and competing voices - developed enormous sway over members through their
ability to raise campaign cash and mount independent campaigns for or against a
candidate. These groups are tougher taskmasters than political party bosses in their
heyday. Their demands for loyalty make it difficult for lawmakers to strike
compromises. The number of US interest groups has increased dramatically. In 1929 a political scientist
counted 500 organizations with direct political interest. "" A study in 1978 found that Congress's 385 standing
committees and subcommittees were "pursued" by more than 1,300 registered lobby groups." By the early 1990s
more than 15,000 groups were represented in Washington." In the 19905 "the most important development" was

Many of these interest groups are lobbying

against China on a range of issues such as trade, human rights, and the
environment.
the rise of relatively under- funded citizen groups."

Chinese engagement is massively controversial Pits divided

lobbies against each other; a vocal minority of hawks are
influential
CRS 8 (Congressional Research Service, CHINAS FOREIGN POLICY AND SOFT POWER
IN SOUTH AMERICA, ASIA, AND AFRICA, https://fas.org/irp/congress/2008_rpt/crs-china.pdf)
Finally, although U.S. Administrations for decades have pursued consistent engagement with China, periodic
questions arise about whether the U.S. approach is based on a well-articulated and coherent strategy or is simply

the
U.S. policy debate continues to be characterized by the strident dynamics t hat arose in
the mid-1990s, in which American hard-liners (self-described as the Blue Team) are pitted
against those advising cooperation and engagement with China (pejoratively
labeled as the Red Team by the opposing group). Thus, there is little agreement about the degree
of threat or challenge China poses to the United States. In the vocal minority are
those who view China as a growing military menace with malign intent. These
hardliners have been perceived sometimes by others as agitators whose counsel to
treat China as a major threat to U.S. interests is designed to justify huge U.S. military budgets and
is more likely to bring about conflict with China than to deter it. The view that has been pursued more
openly by U.S. Administrations is one that counsels cooperation and engagement
with China as the best way to integrate China into the prevailing global system as a
responsible stakeholdera nation that has a responsibility to strengthen the international system that
has enabled its success. 3 But opponents of this approach typically paint these as the views of
panda-huggers who, seduced by the potential of the China market, are oblivious to PRC hostile intent, cave in
to PRC wishes and demands unnecessarily, and thereby squander U.S. strategic
leverage and compromise U.S. interests. The confrontational and highly-charged
dynamic between these two polar views continues to make elusive the kind
of pragmatic and reasoned policy discourse that could create greater
American consensus on how the United States should position itself to meet the challenges China poses.
an approach of convenience that should be reassessed in the face of Chinas rise. Outside the Administration,

GOP fragmentation increases hardline stance on China

Austin 15 (Greg, 10/25, Professorial Fellow with the EastWest Institute in New York and a
Professor at the Australian Centre for Cyber Security at the University of New South Wales, US China

Policy Under a Republican President, http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/us-china-policy-under-arepublican-president/)

the negative
pressure we saw on U.S. China policy from the neo-cons under George W. Bush will
be multiplied in spades by negative pressures from a far more fragmented, deeply
ideological, and less pragmatic party. This is my reading of the Republican Congress
members performance on China policy and foreign policy in general under Obama and of the
Looking from here to a Republican presidency in 2017, it is not unreasonable to suggest that

attitudes of the Republican Partys support base. I am taking as one reference point for my assumptions about the
extremist elements in the support base the strong showings of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and Ted
Cruz in opinion polls on likely support for them in a presidential election. In this environment, as much I am opposed
to dynasty politics in democratic societies, whether it be Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Justin Trudeau, or Marine Le Pen, I
am beginning to suspect that the only Republican candidate who can navigate the foreign policy nightmare the
United States and the world now face (thanks to Islamic State, Russia, and the mess in Israel) is Jeb Bush. And he
will do it with a human and compassionate face that his aforementioned competitors appear to lack.

Fragmentation of the popular power base of a Republican president and the

deepening influence of extremist and unsustainable tendencies among candidates
and elite advisers (neo-cons on steroids) could be a threat to peace with China. It
could also be threat to the future prosperity and global leadership of the United States.

Congress will deadlock engagement over China Rebalance

proves
Connelly 15 (Aaron, fellow @ Lowy Inst., Australian think tank, 9/25, CONGRESS AND ASIA-PACIFIC
POLICY: DYSFUNCTION AND NEGLECT, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/congress-and-asia-pacific-policydysfunction-neglect)

Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional as a result of political polarisation

in both houses, a consequence in part of ideologically cohesive districts and increasing political polarisation in the
broader population. That dysfunction has disproportionately affected those issues without powerful champions,

While key members of Congress have sought to

shield US engagement in the Middle East or Eastern Europe from the worst effects of
congressional gridlock, engagement with the Asia Pacific has lacked such protection.
such as engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.

When members have turned their attention to Asia-Pacific issues, it has often been in pursuit of narrow objectives

one risk is that

Congress may well replace a lack of interest in Asian affairs with an unhealthy
preoccupation with China.
focused on a single country or issue, without reference to a broader regional strategy. Indeed,

Skeptics of the rebalance will brand the plan as another failure

of the pivot
Connelly 15 (Aaron, fellow @ Lowy Inst., Australian think tank, 9/25, CONGRESS AND ASIA-PACIFIC
POLICY: DYSFUNCTION AND NEGLECT, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/congress-and-asia-pacific-policydysfunction-neglect)

the administration also failed to convince sceptics that the rebalance was
not an attempt to contain China. In this, the administration shares some blame. The
However,

Pentagon under the Obama administration has occasionally described the rebalance and its increased military
engagement with security partners in the region partnerships that are intended to achieve a broad range of
security goals in terms that suggest it is merely an effort to counter China, rather than a more sophisticated
effort to build partnerships and patterns of interaction with the militaries of the region. As a result, the

rebalance has often been judged by members of the press and members of
Congress by how tough administration officials have been on Beijing. [12] But the
rebalance was never intended to be all about China. Rather, the rebalance was designed to uphold the liberal order
in the region, principally through engagement with the entire region, including China.[13] Moreover, US officials
have been careful not to take any actions that would present countries of the region a stark choice between

Washington and Beijing, a choice Southeast Asian leaders have repeatedly said they do not want to be asked to
make.[14] There has also been a recognition that Chinese actions that disregard international norms and laws are
serious challenges to the regional order, and that the United States must seek to deter those actions. But the
United States has not attempted to prevent Chinas rise, merely those Chinese actions that are inconsistent with
international norms and laws. Despite missteps in communicating the rebalance, it still represents a substantial
increase in engagement with the region which understands the importance of third country sensitivities in USChina

The United States has been held back, not so much by the Obama
administrations inattention or an unwillingness to be tough on China, but by a
Congress so paralysed by partisanship that it can no longer carry out some of its most
basic functions.
competition.

Engagement is controversial with GOP neocons

Lee & Solomon 15 (Carol, & Jay, staff @ Wall St. Jnl, How Global Threats Have Crowded
Obamas Diplomacy Agenda, http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-global-threats-have-crowded-obamasdiplomacy-agenda-1435627360)
Mr. Obamas foreign-policy offensive, described by a dozen current and former U.S. officials involved in its
execution, was a blueprint to fulfill the presidents 2008 campaign pledge of breaking from decades of post-Cold

reflect Mr. Obamas belief that diplomatic

and economic engagement trump military power in winning lasting American
influence. David Axelrod, one of Mr. Obamas closest advisers since the 2008 campaign, said the seeds of the
presidents second-term foreign-policy agenda were planted from the very first days of the first term. The
effort has at times been rocky. All four initiatives have been controversial; in three of them
Iran, Cuba and climate changeMr. Obama challenged Republicans and the foreign-policy
establishment. And the trade deal set off a jarring collision with his own party. Other
problems have crowded the agenda and, in the eyes of critics, caught the president
unprepared. China was a priority at the outset of the administration, but Beijing has
repeatedly defied the White House, striking an aggressive posture in Asia, militarily and economically,
War U.S. foreign-policy doctrine. Together, the initiatives

that has alarmed U.S. allies.

Engagement creates left-right coalitions to oppose the plan

Gries, Crowson, & Cai 11 (Peter, Michael, & Huajian, Institute for USChina Issues,
Norman, OK, God, guns, and ... China? How ideology impacts American attitudes and policy
preferences toward China,
http://www.ou.edu/uschina/gries/articles/texts/Gries.2011.IRAP.GodGunsChina.pdf)

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are internally divided on China, making
for some strange bedfellows in Washington, DC. As the quotes above suggest, liberal human
rights advocates like Nancy Pelosi and Christian conservatives like Christopher Cox often join
together in advocating tougher China policies. Indeed, the Senate and House Taiwan
caucuses, which are not just pro-Taiwan but also generally anti-China, are genuinely
bipartisan, with comparable numbers of Democratic and Republican members.
However, on the pro-China side, business conservatives often join liberal internationalists in advocating more
friendly China policies. For instance, the USChina Business Council, which lobbies on behalf of US companies doing
business with China, works closely not just with Republicans but also with Democrats on Capitol Hill to promote proChina and block anti-China legislation.

The plan causes backlash by security neocons

Pantazi 10 (Florian, Master in Geopolitics and International Relations from Sciences Po Toulouse
and an MA in History from the Al.I.Cuza University, Iasi, Romania, The conduct of US foreign policy is a
presidential prerogative, https://florianpantazi.blogactiv.eu/2010/12/the-conduct-of-us-foreign-policyis-a-presidential-prerogative/)

According to Emmanuel Puig (Lordre et la menace: analyse critique du discours de la menace chinoise en

American security and international relations experts, many of

have begun to sell the Chinese menace as the biggest
potential threat to the US national interest. These experts , who during the eighties were not
even able to predict the implosion of the Soviet Union, are now back in the saddle within academia,
the State Department or conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation,
spreading their new anti-China message to a largely uneducated American public,
Relations internationales), the
them committed cold warriors,

courtesy of decades of neglect of the secondary school system . Thus, the knowledge of international issues of the
average American is so poor that even politicians like former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin believe that
the US presence in Iraq was mandated by God, or that Americas main ally in the Korean peninsula isNorth Korea.

the partisans of engaging China, who were in vogue during the nineties,
are currently being replaced by security and foreign policy experts advocating
Chinas containment.
These days,

Opponents will brand engagement as ceding power to China

CRS 8 (Congressional Research Service, CHINAS FOREIGN POLICY AND SOFT POWER
IN SOUTH AMERICA, ASIA, AND AFRICA, https://fas.org/irp/congress/2008_rpt/crs-china.pdf)
Having progressed on a steady path in the last three decades on multiple global economic and political endeavors,

Chinas robust international engagement since 2000 has caught many by surprise
and has prompted growing American disagreement and debate over PRC
motivations and objectives. The fact that much of this international engagement has expanded while the
United States has been preoccupied with its military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan also is causing a growing

many fear that Chinas growing international

economic engagement is going hand-in-hand with expanding political influence .
degree of American introspection. Moreover,

Although some believe that PRC officials appear more comfortable working with undemocratic or authoritarian

PRC outreach also has extended to key U.S. allies or to regions where U.S.
dominance to date has been unparalleled and unquestioned, leading some to
conclude that Beijing ultimately intends a direct challenge to U.S. global power.
governments,

Engagement is unpopular because of opposition to the Chinese

state & security fears
Gries 9 (Peter Hays, Harold J. & Ruth Newman Chair and Director of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues at the
University of Oklahoma, Problems of Misperception in U.S.-China Relations,
http://www.fpri.org/docs/media/gries.US-Chinarelations.pdf)

American misperceptions of China and subsequent prescriptions for U.S.-China

policy are very much embedded in this ongoing debate over American national identity. It is
the spirit of 76 that appears to dominate U.S. views of China today. The Jeffersonian
Republican strain of American Liberalism has, at its heart, a fierce insistence on individual liberty set against an
authoritarian state. In American national narratives, the United States won its independence and freedom against
the tyranny of King George and the British. But our fear of the individuals enslavement at the hands of a strong

Decrying a China threat and the evils of

communism becomes a way of defining what it means to be a freedom-loving
twenty-first century American. It is, therefore, not surprising that American politicians
frequently use China as a tool to construct patriotic images of themselves before
the American electorate. Since it is fairly safe to say that China will remain communist, at least in name
for the medium-term future, it is also likely that at a very deep-rooted level, many Americans will
continue to fear Chinas rise. Those on both ends of the American political spectrum
who advocate a tougher policy toward China partake of this Spirit of 76. On the left, the campaign
state lives on today in our fear of communism.

rhetoric of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton adhered to this narrative of protecting individual liberty against

an authoritarian state. Similarly, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as well as hu man

rights advocates,
decry the lack of political liberties in Chin a. They are joined on the right by religious
conservatives who lament not just godless communism, but the lack of religious and other
political liberties in China. For instance, New Jersey Congressman Christopher Smith, a Christian
conservative, has held dozens of hearings on Capital Hill to deplore Chinas lack of religious freedoms. Chinas
continued repression of religion is among the most despotic in the world, Smith argues. Today, numerous
underground Roman Catholic priests and bishops and Protestant pastors languish in the infamous concentration
camps of China for simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.12 This bi-partisan Spirit of 76 drove the
spring 2008 protests against Chinas Tibet policies and the Olympic torch relay. These Americans rallied around the
idea of defending religious freedom, and the idea of liberty in the face of tyranny. This spirit explains the
tremendous sympathy that ordinary Americans feel about the plight of Tibetan Buddhists. One of the most
fundamental Chinese misperceptions of the United States is to view American Spirit of 76ers as anti-China,
when they actually know and care little about China, but are instead anti-state power, in any of its forms, including
if not especially communist. But the Federalist celebration of American nationhood also seems to live on in those
Americans who think not primarily about the symbolic threat that Chinese tyranny presents to American Liberty

The very idea of

Chinas rise appears to generate insecurities about the Americas fate in the
twenty-first century. In some ways, 9/11 and Chinas rise appear analogous to Shays Rebellion of 1786as about the material threat that Chinas rise represents to the American nation.

1787 in that they all prompted a Federalist fear of national disintegration. It is this fear that generates a willingness
to sacrifice individual liberties for the sake of state power and security. It is hard to imagine a Patriot Act or a
unitary executive theory in an Americaespecially during a Republican controlled Washingtonthat was not
facing the threats of Islamic fundamentalism and Chinas rise.

Lobbyists will tie unrelated issues to engagement, causing

fights over human rights, religion, Taiwan, and a host of
controversial issues
Lubman 4 (Stanley, Lecturer of Law and Visiting Scholar for the Center for the Study of Law and
Society, UC Berkeley, The Dragon As Demon: Images Of China On Capitol Hill,
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4099x6f8#page-2)
This article has explored only the surface manifestations of deeper issues that lie beneath the Congressional
debates because it has been concerned only with what has been said publicly, for the record. It undoubtedly slights
many other members whose spoken words have been few, but who are more temperate in their judgments than

relationships with interest groups lie behind

the one-dimensional images of China in Congress that have been illustrated here. Labor
unions, human rights advocates and anti-abortion groups have been among China's
strongest critics, and there are others less obvious, such as Taiwan-funded lobbyists. The
impact of the lobbyists is reinforced, however, by what one veteran of thirty years of China-watching
in the US government has noted as "the lack of professional training or experience in dealing
with China on the part of congressional staff members critical of administration
policy."4 But when members of Congress reflect uncritically what lobbyists and
poorly-informed staff tell them, ignoring the complexities of modem China, they are
led into drastic oversimplification of their debate and thought on China policy. It is
impossible to differentiate among the reasons underlying the demonizing of China
by some in Congress, but some ignorance, willful or not, underlies the words of the demonizers. More than
some of their more vocal colleagues. More important,

ignorance is involved, of course, and inquiry into the dynamics of Congressional participation in making China policy
obviously must go behind the Congressional debate that forms the public record. Whatever other factors are at

the rhetoric that dominates discussions of China by some members of

Congress promises to continue to deform not only their personal perspectives, but
the contribution that Congress makes to formulation of this country' 5 China policy. At the very least,
work, however,

administration policymakers are "diverted from other tasks. . .Much time is spent dealing with often exaggerated
congressional assertions about negative features of the Chinese government' 5 behavior. . .The congressional critics
are open to a wide range of Americans- some with partisan or other interests - who are prepared to highly in often
graphic terms real or alleged policies and behaviors of the Chinese government in opposition to US interests."

Link Engagement (Bolton)

Bolton will attack engagement
Barry 5 (Tom, staff @ Counterpunch, John Boltons Baggage,
http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/03/14/john-bolton-s-baggage/)
One of the long-running divides in the Republican Party is between those who favor constructive engagement with

Bolton is a leading figure in the

confrontationalist China lobby, sometimes called the Blue Team. In the post-WW II period, the
China lobby was most closely associated with the old guard right and militantly
anticommunist organizations like the American Security Council. Today, the China lobby finds
its home in the neoconservative think tanks and policy institutes , notably the American
Enterprise Institute and the Center for Security Policy. With such figures as John Bolton, it has also
found a home in the Bush administration. Bolton and other administration figures, such as CIA
director Porter Goss and Donald Rumsfeld, are warning that China increasingly represents a
military threat not just to other Asian countries but to the United States itself.
China and those who propagate an alarmist view of China . John

Bolton is powerful in Congress

Arkin 16 (James, congressional reporter for RealClearPolitics, 1/8, Bolton Endorses 16 for Re-Election to
Congress, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/08/bolton_endorses_16_for_reelection_to_congress.html)

Bolton has endorsed 16 Republican members of Congress for

re-election this year, and his PAC will contribute the maximum amount of $5,000 to
each of their campaigns. The list includes seven senators : John McCain of Arizona, Mark Kirk of
Former U.N. ambassador John

Illinois, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rob Portman of Ohio, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Richard Burr of North
Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. It also includes Rep. Joe Heck, who is running for Senate in Nevada for the
seat of retiring Democratic Leader Harry Reid. In the House, Bolton endorsed Reps. Martha McSally of Arizona; Mike
Coffman of Colorado; Bob Dold of Illinois; Lee Zeldin, Elise Stefanik and John Katko of New York; Will Hurd of Texas;

Bolton, an influential national security voice among

Republican circles, served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President
George W. Bush. He said he created the PAC for the 2014 midterm cycle as a way to
promote candidates who are strong on national security, and that was the
determining factor in the latest round of endorsements.
and Barbara Comstock of Virginia.

Link Diplomatic Engagement

The GOP rejects the principles of diplomatic engagement
Abbey 11 (Tristan, senior editor of Bellum: A Project of The Stanford Review, Diplomats,
Demagogues and Innocents Abroad, http://americasfuture.org/diplomats-demagogues-and-innocentsabroad/)
Conservatives typically reserve a special place on the mantle for tradition. Its striking, then, that many today would

While
there has always been a quasi-isolationist wing of the movement, it has su rged
during the Obama administration with renewed vigor, joining forces with a
long-standing, hawkish skepticism of diplomacys ability to solve real
world problems. Together, the two strains of thought wield considerably more
influence over the conservative center now than at any point in at least
the past decade. One of the more prominent examples of this trend was the 2010
debate surrounding New START, the latest nuclear arms control treaty with Russia. Despite the
support of former cabinet secretaries from every Republican administration since
Richard Nixon and the chiefs of all the armed services, the treaty faced enormous
opposition from a majority of Republican senators. New START essentially continues an arms
so blithely discard the long-cherished legacy of Republican leadership on questions of foreign affairs.

control process begun with the Russians during the Cold War, limiting the number of nuclear warheads and delivery
vehicles to certain levels. A key feature of the treaty, in fact, was the updating and enhancement of the so-called
verification regime, which includes numerous on-site inspections. Some conservatives questioned the efficacy of
the verification procedures, derided the Obama administrations claim that ratification would help relations with

It passed in a vote of 7126, a relatively

narrow margin for arms control treaties, which typically pass with tremendous
bipartisan support. By comparison, the George W. Bush administrations Strategic
Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia in 2002 passed the Senate in a vote of 95
0. That was a different political climate, to be sure, but SORT was criticized for lacking verification mechanisms
Russia, and warned of potential limits to missile defense.

altogether and passed unanimously anyway. Its not just arms control that inspires such skepticism. Libertarians like
the Cato Institutes Ted Galen Carpenter have argued that the United States should withdraw from NATO. On the
occasion of NATOs 60th anniversary he wrote: [NATO] has become a hollow shellfar more a political honor
society than a meaningful security organization. . . . Until the United States changes the incentives by withdrawing
its troops from Europe and phasing out its NATO commitment, the Europeans will happily continue to evade their

This argument has

been resurgent this year, trumpeted by Ron Paul in his presidential campaign and
raised in debates about the debt crisis and the Obama Administrations intervention
in Libya. Libya has indeed been a flashpoint, not just on the libertarian fringe but on Capitol Hill: Much of the Tea
responsibilities. . . . It is time to terminate this increasingly dysfunctional alliance.

Party caucus voted to cut off funding for the war in Libya. A reasonable case against American intervention was
certainly made by an array of foreign policy realists and others, but this is a questionable political tactic. After all,
conservatives lambasted Democrats during the Iraq War for playing politics with funding of ongoing military
operations. Earlier this year, the Republican Study Committee called for defunding the U.S. Agency for International
Development. Conservatives undoubtedly have fair and trenchant criticisms about the efficacy of foreign aid, and
many offer valuable reform ideas to reverse the worst of its follies. But even William Easterly, one of the most
vociferous critics of the development establishment, hasnt called for gutting the agency, which is incidentally

Conservatives opposed talks with elements of the

Taliban, even though General David Petraeus supported these diplomatic efforts.
Some representatives have sought to prioritize cuts to the State Department, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization of American States, and other
programs. This is not simply an abdication of U.S. leadership on the world stage,
motivated by fiscal austerity; it is a rejection of the utility of diplomacy writ
large. The anti-interventionist and anti-internationalist tendencies of certain
elements of the conservative movement have always been there, but were checked
playing key roles in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

aggressively by the Bush administration, particularly after September 11. With the
combination of a new president and the winding down of the wars overseas, these
voices are now liberated to say that President Obamas world travels are a waste of
fuel, foreign aid is a waste of money, international organizations are a waste of
space, and engagement is a waste of time.

The GOP opposes diplomacy seen as expensive & soft on

defense
Kralev 13 (Nicholas, 8/1, former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent and author of America's Other
Army: The U.S. Foreign Service and 21st Century Diplomacy, The Diplomatic Doldrums, http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/01/thediplomatic-doldrums/)

The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee approved on July 24 an $8 billion

cut for 2014 in the roughly $50 billion current international affairs budget. That same day, the
House authorized a $5 billion reduction in the defense budget of over $600 billion the latest reminder that

many Republicans, and certainly some Democrats, dont much value diplomacy
or foreign aid. Why is that the case? As it happens, I spent most of the spring interviewing congressional
staffers and analyzing their bosses and their own attitudes toward diplomacy, the Foreign Service, and the
State Department for a recently released study commissioned by the American Foreign Service Association. The
study based on interviews with 28 staffers, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, House and

a high level of distrust

remains between Foggy Bottom and members of both parties on Capitol Hill. That
distrust, moreover, appears to be much more fundamental and deeply rooted than the
disagreement over last years attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi , Libya. Many in
Congress simply do not see diplomacy as a vital component of U.S. national
security. They view it as something that is useful under certain circumstances, but not
necessarily crucial to protecting American interests. To a startling degree, this
disconnect appears to be the product of ignorance. Members and their staffers dont
know exactly what U.S. diplomats do every day at all 275 overseas posts to advance
U.S. interests whether it is helping foreign countries build infrastructure, reform judicial systems, enhance
counterterrorism programs, or improve their economies. Members of Congress have a vague idea of
what U.S. diplomats are up to, but clearly not enough to justify continuing the
current years funding level. So the House Appropriations Committees vote on the
2014 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill was hardly a surprise. The
committee chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), issued a statement saying that, "given all of
the countrys needs and fiscal realities, we must prioritize our very limited funds on
only the most important international activities." The Houses allocation of nearly $42 billion is
Senate concluded that those attitudes have improved in the past decade, but

$10 billion less than the level approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 25 and President Barack

When asked whether most members of Congress associate diplomacy

with national security, only 43 percent of the staffers in my study, all of whom asked to
remain anonymous, said "yes." Members "see it as not necessarily vital because they
dont take the time to understand it, and they dont take the time to educate
their constituents," a senior Senate Democratic aide told me. Even if members see a link between diplomacy
Obamas request.

and national security, according to one House Democratic aide, they think that "defense trumps diplomacy."

Despite the Obama administrations forceful arguments that diplomacy and defense
are equally important to U.S. national security, on Capitol Hill, "diplomacy is still the red-headed
stepchild of the American national security apparatus, " in the words of one senior House
Democratic aide. Appreciation for diplomacy breaks down, at least in part, along partisan
lines. As one senior Senate Republican aide noted, "By and large, Republicans are more national

security-focused, while Democrats are more internationalist when it comes to

foreign policy. Republicans view the Foreign Service as more of an adjunct to our
national security interests" because for them the diplomatic service is "our way of
helping other countries," even if its not "in our benefit, " the aide said. For
Republicans, the top priority is to "keep us safe," while for Democrats its to "make
the world a better place." Still, respondents from both parties admitted they struggle
to find a "more direct link" between diplomacy and national security or to describe
exactly what the Foreign Service does in more relatable terms. Others said the link is clear in their minds, but they
find it difficult to articulate it to others. "Thats the $64,000 question," as one senior Senate Republican aide put it.
Not that members of Congress are completely clueless about what the Foreign Service does. In the words of another
Senate Republican aide, diplomacy is about making sure that other countries understand American values. If they
dont, "then they could potentially be enemies." Likewise, a House Democratic aide described the Foreign Services
role as "keep[ing] lines of communication open, giving us a much bigger sense of whats actually happening" in a
foreign country. "At the end of the day, true security is fostered by relationships, but I do know that many members
of Congress dont share this view," a senior House Republican aide said. Nonetheless, only half the respondents in
the study said they consider diplomacy a serious profession. "Would I say that you need some specialized training
to do it? Probably not. Probably any smart person who has an interest in living abroad could do it," said one Senate
Republican aide. A senior Senate aide from the Democratic side seemed to agree: "When you say you are a
diplomat, I dont know what that body of knowledge is." Another senior Senate Republican aide even took issue with
"use of the word profession," saying it should imply a specific body of knowledge and a clear and published set of
skills that are tested. Law and the military are proper professions, in the aides view, but the Foreign Service

misperceptions and lack of understanding

seem to drive members reluctance to support better funding for diplomacy and
foreign aid, which together represent just over 1 percent of the federal budget. "Its hard to sell that
you need money to have more nice dinners," a House Republican aide explained. Another Senate
Democratic aide said that some members think "diplomacy is cheap" because its just
"people talking to each other and not something that they think requires large
amounts of money."
entrance exams dont rise to the same level. In this way,

Opposition to diplomacy outweighs support

Larison 15 (Daniel, 4/30, senior editor at the American Conservative, holds a PhD in history from
the University of Chicago, Cottons Clumsy Attack on Zarif,
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/2015/04/)
Interventionists in Congress have no problem if a president starts wars on his own, because he is pursuing the
policy they would have voted for anyway if they were bothered to vote on such things. They are alarmed by
negotiations that could make it more difficult for a future president to attack the regime involved in the talks. These

hawks have excessive confidence that military action can solve problems
overseas, and so they dont to impose limits on what the U.S. does in its foreign
wars. They tend to see diplomacy as nothing but appeasement and therefore
something that should be undermined, second-guessed, and sabotaged as much as
possible. Other members of Congress have no strong ideological motivation for this behavior, but
simply want to be able to grandstand on major issues without suffering serious
political consequences. They are glad to avoid having to vote one way or another on
a war, since that potentially could come back to haunt them if the war drags on, if it fails, or if many Americans
are killed. Its safer and easier for them to cheer on a presidents illegal war when its popular and then start griping
about it when it goes badly, and because they never cast a vote one for or against the war they can have it both

If Congressional meddling succeeds in damaging negotiations, any later costs

to the U.S. from that missed opportunity wont be linked back to the meddling
members of Congress. If the meddling doesnt work as intended, most people will
quickly forget it. In the meantime, the meddlers will get credit for standing
up against appeasement or whatever nonsensical description they choose to
use. Unfortunately, there is normally no political cost for members of Congress that
ways.

want to use diplomacy with an unpopular government as an excuse to demagogue

and look tough to the voters back home. That is why many of them will try to
interfere with U.S. diplomacy while giving the president free rein to wage illegal wars for as long as he
wants.

Congress especially reject funding diplomatic engagement

CFR 14 (Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, RE-BALANCING THE REBALANCE:
RESOURCING U.S. DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION,
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/872692.pdf)
The methods of policy execution are just as important as the results: how a policy is pursued and perceived can

the rebalance must

first address how resources are allocated within the U.S. Government , and then how they
impact its success as much as the actual mechanics of its implementation. To succeed,

are deployed across the region. Some progress has been made. Congress anticipated the need to rebalance when it
encouraged creation of the position of U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN; the State Department has created new
diplomatic and assistance programs in the region, such as the Lower Mekong Initiative and the Asia-Pacific Strategic
Engagement Initiative; the U.S. Government joined the East Asia Summit in 2011; and the U.S. Trade Representative
is pursuing the expansion and completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade agreement, as well as

trade promotion bodies like the Export-Import

Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and U.S. Trade and Development
Agency have increased their financial engagement with the region. Nonetheless, the
State Department has not substantially increased diplomatic engagement resources
to its Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Department of Commerce staffing levels have not
significantly increased, hindering the ability of U.S. businesses to take full
advantage of new prospects. U.S. development assistance to the region, which saw a modest
increase in the administrations FY 2015 budget proposal, is still below levels from several years
ago, and the U.S. development approach needs updating and upgrading.
several bilateral investment treaties. Furthermore,

Conservatives see diplomacy as uncertain and weak

Mittag 15 (Fred, May, retired high school history teacher from Houston, Political
Masochism, http://chapala.com/elojo/index.php/may-2015/167-articles-2014/august2014/2619-political-masochism)
Millions of viewers are brainwashed by watching Fox News and are driven only by mindless emotion and unfounded
beliefs. They vote Republican against their own best interests because Murdoch has trained them. An important
characteristic of conservatives is generalized fear. They fear Mexicans, Muslims, blacks, conspiracies, taxes,

Studies
have identified conservative needs for a high level of certainty and order. This is
what made George W. Bush so admired among conservatives when he said, Youre
either for us or against us. Conservatives loved his unambiguous certainty , but in the
ambiguity, and even fear their own country The feds are coming in black helicopters for our guns.

context of invading Iraq, it was simplistic. France and Germany werent against us; they just didnt agree that

conservatives go crazy when Obama turns to

diplomacy instead of military confrontation. The conservatives want an
authoritative, certain solution to everything and see diplomacy as ambiguous
and uncertain even weak. Republicans want control over peoples lives (especially
sex and reproduction). Being in control enhances ones sense of security. Democrats prefer
invasion was a good idea. Its the reason

freedom, which reflects their humanism.

Diplomatic engagement is cast as appeasement by

conservative critics
Takeyh 9 (10/7, Ray, sr. fellow @ Council on Foreign Relations, The Essence of Diplomatic Engagement,
http://www.cfr.org/diplomacy-and-statecraft/essence-diplomatic-engagement/p20362)

As the Obama administration charts its foreign policy, there is increasing unease
about its lack of achievements. The Iraq war lingers, Afghanistan continues to be mired in its endless
cycle of tribal disarray and Islamist resurgence, Guantanamo remains open. Still, Obama has introduced
important changes in both the style and substance of US diplomacy. An honest
dialogue with the international community has at times led the president to
acknowledge our own culpabilities and shortcomings . Even more dramatic has been Obama's
willingness to reach out to America's adversaries and seek negotiated solutions to some of the world's thorniest

It is Obama's declared engagement policy that has raised the ire of

critics and led them to once more take refuge in the spurious yet incendiary charge
of appeasement. Columnist Charles Krauthammer recently exclaimed, "When France
chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom." Acknowledgement
of America's misjudgments is derided as an unseemly apologia while diplomacy is
denigrated as a misguided exercise in self-delusion. After all, North Korea continues to
problems.

test its nuclear weapons and missiles, Cuba spurns America's offers of a greater opening, and the Iranian mullahs
contrive conspiracy theories about how George Soros and the CIA are instigating a velvet revolution in their country.

Tough-minded conservatives are urging a course correction and a resolute approach

to the gallery of rogues that the president pledges to embrace.

The GOP hates diplomacy, sees it as weak on national security

Power 8 (Samantha, 8/14, Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership at Harvards Kennedy
School, The Democrats & National Security, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/08/14/the-democrats-nationalsecurity/)

Having suffered through what one diplomat called the enemy deprivation
syndrome of the 1990s, September 11 gave hard-line conservatives an opportunity
to apply their pre-hatched theories; and from the start they sought to unshackle the
United States from international agreements and to reduce reliance on
diplomatic engagement. When the Bush administration scored a rare recent
diplomatic success, convincing North Korea to open up some of its nuclear records,
Vice President Cheney was so disgusted by his own administrations
pragmatic decision to take Pyongyang off the US terrorist blacklist that he
snapped at reporters, Im not going to be the one to announce this decision. You
need to address your interest in this to the State Department. He then abruptly ended the
press encounter, and left the room. What is striking about Scoblics account of the hard-line conservatives disdain

As they ridicule
Senator Barack Obamas willingness to engage in negotiations with
Americas enemies, they seem unchastened by recent history. In 2003, for instance, when
for diplomacy and pragmatism is the resilience of the central tenets of their ideology.

the reporter Jeffrey Goldberg told Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense, that US troops in Iraq had not been
greeted with flowers, Feith said that the Iraqis had been too spooked by the presence of Saddam supporters to
show their true emotions. But, he said, they had flowers in their minds.

Diplomatic engagement is controversial China is seen as an

uneven partner
Waltemeyer 6 (Robert, Colonel US Army, Army War College, M.A., COMPREHENSIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA,
handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA448717)

the U.S administration was disillusioned in engagement with China.

Engagement slowed over a perceived a lack of reciprocity, mutual suspicions about
intentions and behavior, asymmetries in the two militaries capabilities and
operational practices as well as uncertainty about the impacts of the relationship
By the 1990s,

with China on the U.S. economy. These factors gave rise to a resurgence of
confrontationalist administration and legislative attitudes toward China. The 1999
Cox Report represented the first of many warnings from Congressional committees, neoconservatives
and Pentagon officials warning about the potential threat posed by a rising China.
The confrontationalist lobbies of the 1990s evolved and by 2005, included The
American Enterprise Institute (AEI),and the Project for a New American Century
(PNAC) with their advocates including Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams,
Richard Perle, and Zalmay Khalilzad. Confrontationalists support a strategy of surrounding
China with military bases, supporting Taiwanese independence and working for the
fall of Communist Party oligarchy in China. John Mearsheimers sentiments sum up the
confrontationalist belief that China is a growing threat to U.S. national power: China cannot rise peacefully, and if it
continues its dramatic economic growth over the next few decades, the United States and China are likely to
engage in an intense security competition with considerable potential for war. A number of strategists, legislators,
and business interests take a less aggressive approach to the strategic relationship with China. These

proponents of engagement prefer to see China as seeking legitimacy through

integration into the international system while its government slowly, and rationally
extends Chinese influence through economic relationships. 20 These integrationalists or
accomodationalists (as engagement advocates are also known), do not see international relations as a zero-sum
game, and believe in the utility of dialogue to socialize China into constructive habits of behavior. Zbigniew
Brzezinski described China as dedicated to a peaceful rise to great power status through economic means: A
confrontational foreign policy could disrupt that growth, harm hundreds of millions of Chinese, and threaten the
Communist Partys hold on power. Members of Congress have formed the U.S.-China Study Group to "reduce
needless conflict with China based on wrong information and advocates leveraging U.S. trade and diplomatic ties to

Proponents of engagement and integration

acknowledge that while Chinas growth will not offer any potential for the
expansion of American influence or hegemony; economic integration provides the
best chance to encourage democratic reforms and a positive partnership between the two nations.
turn China into a less-menacing state."

Link Economic Engagement

Manufacturing concerns ensure polarization around the plan
Batabyal 16 (Amitrajeet, 5/27, Arthur J. Gosnell professor of economics at Rochester Institute of
Technology, Is U.S. political polarization made in China?, http://www.rbj.net/article.asp?aID=228472)
The divisiveness of the U.S. presidential election this year reflects, in many ways, the now well-known partisan

there are empirical metrics that

clearly show the ideological gap between the two major U.S. political parties is now
at an all-time high. This political polarization is primarily due to a noteworthy
rightward shift among congressional Republicans and a less noteworthy but nonetheless real
divide in Congress. This divide has been increasing over time, and

leftward shift among congressional Democrats. The unenviable result of this polarization is that centrists in either
party have increasingly become an endangered species, possibly on their way to extinction. Even though the above

there is a connection between political

polarization in the U.S. and rising tradein manufactured goodswith China. To see
points are now well-known, what is not well-known is that

this connection, it is necessary to understand the thought-provoking new research on this topic by David Autor,
David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Kaveh Majlesi. These researchers ask whether it is possible for negative economic

shocks emanating from international trade with China , mainly in manufactured goods, to
cause voters or their elected legislators to take positions that lean toward political
extremes on either the left or the right. Recall that from the 1950s to the early 1980s, manufacturing jobs in this
country permitted American workers without a college degree to attain a middle-class lifestyle. However, with

U.S. manufacturing
industries exposed to import competition from China have seen a number of
undesirable effects including higher rates of plant exit, larger contractions in
employment and lower lifetime incomes for the affected workers. The researchers analyzed
increased trade competition from China, this state of affairs has largely vanished. In fact,

congressional elections from 2002 and 2010 and show that congressional districts subject to larger increases in
import competition from China in this time period were substantially less likely to elect a moderate legislator in
2010. Put differently,

the more exposed a district is to trade, the greater is the move

away from the political center. It is important to comprehend that this move away
from the center is not because of changes in the voting behavior of existing
legislators but because of the election of more extreme lawmakers. In terms of the two
major parties, this finding means that a congressional district that was initially in Republican
hands is much more likely to elect a conservative Republican. Similarly , but somewhat
less commonly, a congressional district that was initially Democratic is more likely to
elect a liberal Democrat.

Republicans will backlash to increasing economic engagement

as promoting Chinese growth
Feffer 14 (John, Director, Foreign Policy In Focus and Editor, LobeLog, The Dance of
Superpowers, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/the-dance-ofsuperpowers_b_6186190.html)
On the major issues of wealth and power, the United States and China have found some common ground. For

the United States is as eager as the Chinese leadership to see the Chinese
economy continue to grow. True, the United States is distinctly unhappy about what it
perceives to be an uneven playing field for American business, Beijings dubious
approach to intellectual property rights, and an industrial policy that privileges state
enterprises. Much of the tension in U.S. policy results from conflict between the
administration and Congress. The latter takes a more skeptical view of China, for
instance on the issue of IMF reform, in which Republicans in Congress have opposed
instance,

the administrations efforts to give China, among other countries, greater say in the
financial institution.

Congress will bash the plan to shift blame from domestic policy
Roach 10 (Stephen, chair @ Morgan Stanley, Asia, Stephen Roach on the Next Asia, p. google
books)

China bashing is also emblematic of a deeper problem that grips the U.S. body
politic -an unwillingness to embark on the heavy lifting of education reform and
other investments in human capital that are required to equip American workers to
compete and prosper in a Brave New World. Instead of investing in a hard- pressed
work force, Washington apparently believes in shielding U.S. workers from low-wage
talent pools in the developing world. The doubling of the world's labor supply that
has occurred in the past two decades has evoked a response of fear and
protectionism. Sadly, that puts America at grave risk of becoming more insular and
inward looking. Yet over the long sweep of U.S. economic history, our workers have
actually done best when they are pushed to their limits by a risk-taking,
entrepreneurial, and innovative society. By blaming others for our own shortcomings
-especially on the saving and human capital fronts- America runs the very real risk
of losing its most special edge of all, an indomitable economic spirit, shirking its
responsibility for putting U.S. savings policy on a sound path, Congress is, instead,
now veering toward the slippery slope of protectionism.

Congress will use the plan to bash China on economic issues

Roach 8 (Stephen, chair of Morgan Stanley, Asia, The Politics of Trade Frictions,
Debating Chinas Exchange Rate Policy, eds. Morris Goldstein, Nicholas Lardy, p. 234)

China is the scapegoat du jour for all that ails the American middle class. At least
that is the conclusion that can be drawn from spending any time these days in
Washington. Unfortunately, the US body politic has long had a penchant for such
scapegoating when it comes to trade policy. Remember the Japan bashing of the late 1980s? And
just three years ago there was an outcry over India, as it became a lightning rod for concerns about the new threat

the Doha Round is dead, bilateral free trade

agreements are going nowhere, Congress has allowed fast-track presidential
negotiating authority to lapse, and opinion polls show an American public with a
serious distaste for trade liberalization and globalization. The politics of
congressional-led China bashing fit into the current inflammatory climate all too
neatly. While there is always at certain amount of bluster in Washington, this time the threats seem
serious and worrisome. By my count, over 18 pieces of antitrade legislation have been
introduced in the first nine months of the 110th Congress. In almost all cases, the
target -either explicitly or implicitly- is China.
of white-collar offshoring. Meanwhile,

Economic engagement is demonized by GOP opponents

Waltemeyer 6 (Robert, Colonel US Army, Army War College, M.A., COMPREHENSIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH CHINA,
handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA448717)

U.S. economic engagement with China has benefited both nations. Now that Chinas growing economic power
appears ready to challenge the American capitalist tradition however, many critics of U.S.-China relations have
selected economic issues that in isolation appear to have serious implications for U.S. economic power. The same
issues when examined from the broader perspective of the global economy demonstrate the degree of complexity

U.S. economic debate is characterized by

the same type of exaggeration and oversimplification that contribute to U.S.-China
tension in the diplomatic and security arenas. The prospect of diminished U.S.
economic power evokes a negative response from the average American consumer ,
employee or investor, because Chinas reputation has been demonized to support the
respective position of various special interest groups, journalists, and Congressional
members. The U.S. reaction to a potential loss of economic power must be
tempered by the reality that the two economies are now so intertwined that policy
and interdependence of the U.S.-China relationship. The

decisions can have international and domestic consequences. Some economists have cautioned U.S. policymakers
that in deciding what trade policies make sense for America, the nation's leaders need to objectively research and
analyze the situation so they can determine the wisest course, looking at the long-term consequences of actions
that may bring them short-term praise. A strategic relationship with China in the age of globalization demands our
attention because as President Bush stated our relationship with China is a very complex one and a simplistic
approach should be avoided.

Anti-trade lobbyists will backlash on China engagement

Economist 5 (4/21, Putting up the barricades,
http://www.economist.com/node/3893672)

China-bashing has captured the headlines.

On April 6th, 67 senators voted against dumping

a bill proposed by Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, that would impose a 27.5% tariff on all goods from
China unless Beijing adjusted its currency within six months. Not only is the legislation utterly against WTO rules, it
would cause havoc for the American economy. But Mr Schumer has been promised a vote by July, and his bill may

The Schumer bill's success, which has surprised even its sponsor, is
accelerating other measures. Two more senators, Susan Collins and Evan Bayh, are touting the Stopping
well pass the Senate.

Overseas Subsidies Act, which would allow American firms to get countervailing duties to make up for Chinese

China is not currently subject to America's antisubsidy law as it is deemed a non-market economy (which makes it easier for American firms
to file anti-dumping cases against it). But declaring China a market economy for the purposes
of subsidies, and a non-market economy for the purposes of anti-dumping, is
against WTO rules. Nobody in Congress , alas, seems to care about breaking WTO
rules. The aim is to be seen to be bashing China loudly. Mr Bayh is holding up the
subsidies, including a subsidised exchange rate.

confirmation of Rob Portman, the new trade representative, until his bill is voted on. Meanwhile, in the House of
Representatives, Duncan Hunter, a conservative Republican, and Tim Ryan, a Democrat, have cooked up a law that
allows American companies to use exchange-rate manipulation as a reason for demanding protection under
America's trade laws. And the Congressional China Currency Action Coalition has filed a Section 301 petition asking
the Bush administration to file a formal case to the WTO complaining about the yuan. In the 1980s,

a rising

trade deficitat that time with Japanfueled protectionist pressure in Congress . Ronald Reagan
introduced the notorious voluntary export restraints on Japanese steel and cars. The Reagan team also
abandoned its laisser-faire attitude to currency markets and, through the Plaza Agreement, engineered a sharp drop

The current bout of China-bashing is not a replay of the 1980s. Back then,
big business,
which relies heavily on Chinese inputs, is quieter. The shouting comes from smaller
American suppliers. And even the noisier business groups, such as the National Association of
in the dollar.

large American firms, particularly the Detroit car giants, led the clamour for protection. Now

Manufacturers, are relatively nuanced. Though the NAM wants Beijing to revalue the yuan, it does not support the
Schumer bill. Less encouragingly, the political and economic risks are bigger this time round. In the 1980s Japan, for

China is now seen as a

nasty communist regime and a dangerous rival. In the mid-1980s, America's currentall its faults, was always viewed as a democratic ally in Asia. By contrast,

account deficit was smaller, 3.5% of GDP in 1985 compared with 6.3% today, and its debt stock lower. Today,
America is the world's biggest debtor, with China as an important creditor. A sharp reversal in China's appetite for
American Treasury bonds could send interest rates soaring. For now, the Bush administration seems to be trying to
muddle through. It has increased its rhetoric about the need for China to fix its exchange rate. It said this at the G7
meeting of finance ministers on April 16th, and,

when the Treasury issues its twice-yearly report

on currencies later this month, it is likely to come close to calling China a currency
manipulatora term last applied to Beijing in 1994. The Bush team hopes to keep this grandstanding to a
minimum. But the China-bashing in Congress presents a danger. At worst, this frenzy could result
in a series of illegal (in WTO terms at least) protectionist bills becoming law. Even if things do not get that far, the
China effect will complicate an already tough struggle to get CAFTA through.

The GOP opposes economic engagement

McCurdy 2k (Dave, American Leadership in the Information Age, Economic Strategy
and National Security, By Patrick DeSouza, p. 44)

the US Congress, increasingly fragmented in its attention and

approach to the twenty-first century globalization, has slowed these efforts . Specifically,
the extreme wings of both major parties have slowed our embrace of the
international economy so as to proactively shape outcomes. The most salient example of
this inward locus was seen during the congressional defeat of fast track trade
authority sought by President Clinton in 1997 and I998. Some parts of the Democratic Party, in fact,
have become well known for their opposition to free trade , leading the way in defeating fast
track. The Republicans have fared no better . USA ENGAGE, a group dedicated to promoting
international trade, reported that based on a number of recent votes such as fast track ,
lnternational Monetary Fund (IMF) funding, and use of unilateral sanctions, support for
global economic engagement can no longer be considered an article of
faith in the Republican Party, especially among social conservatives.
On the other hand,

Link Climate Deals

Plan costs capital GOP hates climate deals and skeptical of
China
Goldenberg 14 [Suzanne Goldenberg, 11-12-2014, "US-China climate deal
boosts global talks but Republicans vow to resist," Guardian,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/12/us-china-climate-dealboosts-global-talks-but-republicans-vow-to-resist]
agreement between the US and China to lower greenhouse-gas
output faced a wall of opposition on Wednesday from Republicans in Washington,
who threatened to use their control of both houses of Congress to thwart the plan.
A secretly negotiated

Under the deal, unveiled unexpectedly in Beijing early on Wednesday, China committed for the first time to cap its
output of carbon pollution by 2030. Beijing also promised to increase its use of zero-emission energy sources, such
as wind and solar power, to 20% by 2030. The United States agreed to double the pace of the cuts in its emissions,
reducing them to between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. The deal struck between President Barack
Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, provides an important boost to efforts to reach a global deal to fight
climate change at a United Nations meeting in Paris next year. The accord also removes the Republicans main
rationale for blocking Obamas efforts to cut carbon pollution the claim that China is unwilling to undertake similar
cuts. But Republicans in the US Congress reacted strongly against the deal on
Wednesday. The party already held a majority in the House of Representatives, and the midterm elections last week

McConnell, said Obama would

unrealistic plan, that the
president would dump on his successor, would ensure higher utility rates and far
fewer jobs, he said. In his first meeting with the incoming Republican majority, McConnell, who
represents the coal state of Kentucky, said he was distressed at the deal, adding
that the diplomatic breakthrough would have no effect on his disdain for
international climate negotiations. As I read the agreement it requires the Chinese to do
also delivered them control of the Senate, where the Republican leader, Mitch
not be in the White House long enough to see the plan through. This

nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emissions regulations are creating havoc in my state and around the

Boehner, also attacked the deal, and

suggested he would move legislation to further limit Obamas ability to deliver the
carbon pollution cuts he promised. The White House has said the US can deliver the promised
country, he said. The Republican speaker of the House, John

reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through existing regulations, including the Environmental Protection

Boehner said:
Republicans have consistently passed legislation to rein in the EPA and stop these
harmful policies from taking effect, and we will continue to make this a priority in
the new Congress. Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and climate denier who is poised to take over
the Senate environment and public works committee in January, said Chinas end of the bargain was
just a ploy to buy time. Its hollow and not believable for China to claim it will shift 20% of
Agencys new rules for power plants, which are the core of Obamas climate agenda. But

its energy to non-fossil fuels by 2030 and a promise to peak its carbon emissions only allows the worlds largest
economy to buy time, he said. As we enter a new Congress I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed
light on the EPAs unchecked regulations. President Obama hailed the deal at a joint press conference with his
Chinese counterpart at the Great Hall of the People. As the worlds largest economies and greatest emitters of
greenhouse gases we have special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change, he said. I am
proud we can announce a historic agreement. I commend President Xi, his team and the Chinese government for
the commitment they are making to slow, peak and then reverse Chinas carbon emissions. President Xi said: We
agreed to make sure international climate change negotiations will reach agreement as scheduled at the Paris
conference in 2015 and agreed to deepen practical cooperation on clean energy, environmental protection and

The early opposition in Washington raised questions about whether the US

and China will be able to deliver on their respective commitments. Obama administration
officials argue the new US target is achievable under existing laws. But with Republicans in control
of Congress, there is virtually no prospect of new climate legislation , and
other areas.

there could be delays that would weaken regulations put in place by the EPA before they come into force. The US
target looks like its going to be really tough to meet without new laws, Michael Levi, an energy and environment
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a blog post. The

EPA power plant rules as theyre

currently proposed are already spurring plenty of pushback; pressing them
further will be a tall political and technical task. In particular, its near-impossible to imagine
achieving these goals simply with actions taken during the Obama administration. President Obamas
administration may have developed and negotiated these numbers, but his successor will determine whether
theyre achieved.

Obama has to push and faces massive opposition.

Herszhenhorn 15 (David M. Herszhenhorn is a congressional reporter for the
NYT. Pub 12/1/15. Votes in Congress Move to Undercut Climate Pledge. NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/politics/as-obama-pushes-climate-dealrepublicans-move-to-block-emissions-rules.html)
Hours after President Obama pledged Tuesday in Paris that the United
States would be in the vanguard of nations seeking a global response to climate
change, Congress approved two measures aimed at undercutting him. In a
provocative message to more than 100 leaders that the American president does
not have the full support of his government on climate policy, the House passed
resolutions, already approved by the Senate, to scuttle Environmental Protection
Agency rules that would significantly cut heat-trapping carbon emissions from existing and future coal-fired
power plants. The House votes by 242 to 180 and 235 to 188, mostly along party lines expanded to
a global level the already profound gulf between Mr. Obama and the
Republican-controlled Congress on domestic issues, demonstrating that the
United States was hardly unified on the issue of climate change even as the
president and other leaders sought to project solidarity . The measures will be sent to the White
WASHINGTON

House, where Mr. Obama has said he will veto them. The Senate approved each measure by an identical margin, 52
to 46, signaling that Republican congressional leaders would not be able to muster the two-thirds majority needed
for an override. This one trend, climate change, affects all trends, President Obama said on Tuesday in Paris. At a
news conference at the climate summit meeting in Paris, Mr. Obama faced repeated questions about whether other
leaders could trust that the United States would be able to fulfill his commitments, even after his term ends in
January 2017, a sentiment that some Republicans reinforced Tuesday .

While the president is at this

climate conference, the American people have that as a very, very low priority,
said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. They are focused on jobs, the
economy and terrorism. In a later interview, Mr. Barrasso was even blunter. The
presidents promises cannot be relied on, he said, noting that the congressional
action to block the administrations environmental rules was just one reason foreign
leaders in Paris could not trust Mr. Obamas commitments. In Paris, Mr. Obama struck a
confident pose, portraying the United States as the superpower leader on many of the worlds most difficult
challenges, not only on climate change, but also on nuclear proliferation issues and global health concerns. My
expectation is that we will absolutely be able to meet our commitments, Mr. Obama said. This is part of American
leadership, he said at another point, adding, Because were the largest country, because we have the most
powerful military, we should welcome the fact that were going to do more and oftentimes were going to do it
first. The House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, at a news conference on Tuesday. He said that Republicans
expected President Obama to reduce his expectations and promises at the Paris climate conference. Mr. Obama
noted lightheartedly that he expected his successor to be a Democrat. But he also insisted that the threat of
climate change to human civilization transcended politics, and that he believed the next president Democrat or
Republican would ultimately support a global response. Even if somebody from a different party succeeded me,
one of the things you find is when youre in this job, you think about it differently than when youre just running for

in Washington, Republican criticism of the president while

abroad was unusually pointed. We want the world to know that there is
disagreement with the president on this issue not about the fact that the
the job, he said. But back

climate is changing, but about the priority that is being placed on it, said
Representative Edward Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky , in a speech on the House floor.
Why should this president penalize Americans and put us in jeopardy compared to other countries of the world and
require us to do more than other countries are doing, just so he can go to France and claim to be the world leader

Other Republicans, including the House majority leader, Kevin

McCarthy of California, noted that Mr. Obamas effort to pass cap-and-trade
legislation in his first term had failed in the face of bipartisan opposition, and they
said the president was ignoring important reductions in carbon emissions brought
about without imposing new government fiats. Bottom of Form By advocating for policies like capon climate change?

and-trade which will kill jobs, increase costs and decrease the reliability of our energy supply the president is
ignoring Americas greatest success story in recent memory, Mr. McCarthy said. Our energy revolution brought on
by fracking is growing our economy and reducing carbon emissions at the same time .

Congressional
Republicans have taken numerous steps in recent weeks to draw clear
distinctions between Mr. Obamas views on environmental protection and
their own policy preferences, which favor increasing energy production in the
United States and further lowering costs for businesses and consumers . As well as voting
on the two resolutions, the House opened floor debate on a major energy bill focused on increasing natural gas

Obama showed no
sign of limiting his lofty goals, though he said he was most immediately focused on
securing a global accord. This one trend, climate change, affects all trends, he said. If we let the world
pipeline development. The bill would also lift a ban on crude oil exports. In Paris, Mr.

keep warming as fast as it is and sea levels rising as fast as they are, and weather patterns keep shifting in more
unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic and
military resources not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a
changing planet. Mr. Obama added: With respect to climate and whats taking place here, I dont want to get
ahead of ourselves. We still need a Paris agreement. So my main focus is making sure that the United States is a
leader in bringing a successful agreement home here in Paris.

Climate treaties, especially with China, create massive

Republican backlash that spills over.
Sheppard 14. (Kate Sheppard, Senior reporter and the environment and energy
editor, The Huffington Post. China Climate Deal? Pffffft, Say Republicans.
November 13, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/12/republicansclimate-china_n_6148986.html)
If anyone thought the announcement of a bilateral U.S.-China climate
agreement on Wednesday might lead to a breakthrough on climate policy in
Washington, Senate Republicans would like to inform them otherwise. The presumptive Senate majority leader,
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said he was distressed by the U.S.-China deal, arguing that it
requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emission
regulations are creating havoc in my state and other states around the country. President Barack
WASHINGTON -

Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the agreement on Wednesday. Under the deal, the U.S. will aim
to cut emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025, and China will reach its peak emissions by 2030. This was
heralded as a major breakthrough on the path to a global climate agreement. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the
chambers most vocal climate change denier and the likely new chair of the Environment and Public Works

took to the Senate floor Wednesday, criticizing the agreement for

allowing China years before it begins to reduce emissions, and casting
doubt that it ever would. Even if they did agree to reducing emissions,
we wouldnt believe them, said Inhofe. They dont end up doing what they say their going to do in
these agreements. In an appearance on MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell Reports, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)
called the agreement irresponsible, and argued it would impose expensive new
regulations on energy in the United States . (The agreement does not include specific regulations
Committee,

this is an agreement
thats terrible for the United States and terrific for the Chinese
government and for the politicians there, because it allows China to
continue to raise their emissions over the next 16 years , said Barrasso. Mitchell
for the U.S.; it merely lays out a 2025 target for emissions reductions.) To me,

pushed Barrasso, a medical doctor by training. Youre a man of science, she said, highlighting statement from his
colleague Inhofe that claimed climate change could not be happening because God is in control. Why should
frankly people trust Republicans to be running policy on science when this is what the incoming chairman had to
say about climate change? Barrasso refused to take the bait, sticking to his argument about the potential cost of
new greenhouse gas regulations without offering an alternative. All of us want to make energy as clean as we can
as fast as we can, he said. We want to do it in ways that dont raise the energy costs for American families and
impact their jobs, income, ability to provide for their families. Those are the issues we need to be focusing on. Not
all Republicans joined the chorus of complaints. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) said he spoke briefly to Secretary of
State John Kerry on Wednesday about the pact. He said hes keeping an open mind. Im positive about trying to

The response to the China deal is a

departure from previous Republican talking points on climate, which often
included complaints that U.S. action was meaningless without Chinas
agreement to participate. Republican leaders have pledged to block the
Obama administrations greenhouse gas regulations that sharply reduce
power plant emissions. But environmental advocates have said such an action would likely sour
cooperate with China on this, Graham said. Well see.

progress toward a global agreement that includes major developing nations like China. If U.S. regulations are
blocked, it would collapse the effort to get China and India and other countries to move forward, said David
Doniger, policy director and senior attorney for the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense
Council, in a post-election call with reporters last week. He noted that developing nations participation in an
agreement is something that Republicans have been demanding for years.

Plan kills bipart GOP hates China and climate deals

OKeefe 14 [Ed O'Keefe, David Nakamura and Steven Mufson, 11-12-2014, "GOP
congressional leaders denounce U.S.-China deal on climate change," Washington
Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-congressional-leaders-denounceus-china-deal-on-climate-change/2014/11/12/ff2b84e0-6a8d-11e4-a31c77759fc1eacc_story.html]
Any hope for Congress to reconvene with a sense of bipartisanship was quickly
erased Wednesday morning as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John A.
Boehner (R-Ohio) sharply criticized the announcement of a new climate deal
between the United States and China. McConnell made his comments during a morning coffee
with 10 newly elected Republican senators in his office off the Senate floor. As his new colleagues stood beaming,
McConnell was asked by reporters whether he planned to shift the Senate to the political middle in hopes of
reaching accord with President Obama and Democrats. The

president continues to send a signal

that he has no intention of moving toward the middle, said McConnell , who is in line to
become the new Senate majority leader in January. I was particularly distressed by the deal hes
reached with the Chinese on his current trip, which, as I read the agreement, it requires the Chinese to do
nothing at all for 16 years, while these carbon emission regulations are creating havoc in my
state and other states across the country. In his initial reaction, McConnell said, This unrealistic
plan that the president would dump on his successor would ensure higher utility
rates and far fewer jobs. Boehner denounced the agreement as the latest example of the
presidents crusade against affordable, reliable energy that is already hurting jobs
and squeezing middle-class families. The speaker, who will preside over an increased GOP
majority when the new Congress convenes, charged in a statement that Obama intends to
double down on his job-crushing policies no matter how devastating the impact,

and he pledged that Republicans would continue to make blocking Obamas

energy policies a priority for the rest of his term. Top administration officials made it clear
Wednesday the president would pursue some of his top priorities despite GOP opposition. Speaking to reporters on
a press call Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy said Obama has
emphasized the importance of curbing greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change for months. The
president has been very clear in the direction in he is moving, McCarthy said. He is not changing at all. While
there is little lawmakers can do to block the U.S.-China climate agreement McConnells aides have already started
investigating ways they could block or delay implementation of the EPAs proposed rule to limit greenhouse gas
emissions from existing power plants, which is set to become final next June. Rather than pushing for an outright
reversal of the rule before its finalized, according to individuals familiar with these deliberations, Senate
Republicans are looking at passing language that would give states the option of not complying with the EPA
mandate until litigation on the issue is resolved, or that would bar federal authorities from enforcing the rule. You
can issue all the executive orders you want. If you dont have any money to enforce them, they dont go very far,
said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) Were going to be pretty aggressive in using the power of the purse.
McConnells home state of Kentucky is heavily dependent on its coal industry, and he made his criticisms of the
Obama administrations carbon emission and climate change policies central themes of his reelection campaign.
McConnell handily won his race in he Nov. 4 midterm elections. I would welcome the president moving to the
middle, he added. Ive said before I hope we can do some business on trade and maybe tax reform. First
indications have not been helpful. McConnell said he was especially pleased to see such a large class of incoming
Republican senators and noted that two more may soon join up once results are finalized in Alaska and Louisiana.

Other Republicans joined McConnell and Boehner in trashing the deal. Sen. James M.
Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is widely expected to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee in January, called the pledges by Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping
hollow and not believable, and he suggested that the agreement was tilted in
Chinas interest. The United States will be required to more steeply reduce our
carbon emissions while China wont have to reduce anything , Inhofe said.

Republicans fight Obama on climate deals

The Hill 16 [2-1-2016, "Republicans vow to deny Obama climate funds to derail
Paris talks," The Hill, http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/260902-gopvows-to-deny-obama-climate-funds-in-bid-to-derail-paris-talks]
Republicans are taking aim at a new Green Climate Fund, as they look to weaken President
Obamas hand in global climate talks later this month. The pot of money, a $3 billion climate change
pledge the presidents administration made last year, is something officials hope to bring to the negotiating table at

Republicans hostile to the climate talks and bent

on doing whatever they can to derail a deal in Paris next month say theyre going
to deny Obama the first tranche of money he hopes to inject into the fund. We pledge that
Congress will not allow U.S. taxpayer dollars to go to the Green Climate Fund until the
United Nations summit in Paris. But

forthcoming international climate agreement is submitted to the Senate for its constitutional advice and consent,
37 Republican senators wrote in a letter to Obama on Thursday. The fund, a pool of public and private money, is
meant to help poorer nations prepare for climate change. A Senate appropriations bill cleared the way for the first
portion of American funding earlier this year, but

Republicans committed this week to blocking it

in a final budget deal.

When it comes to the financing: I know a lot of people over there, the 192 countries,
assume that Americans are going to line up and joyfully pay $3 billion into this fund, said Sen. James Inhofe, the

Republicans
have looked to throw up obstacles in Obamas path toward a climate
accord, but they do not have a clear way to block it. Unless a deal is deemed to be a treaty requiring Senate
ratification, it wont come before lawmakers for a vote. But the climate fund, something developing nations
have long wanted as part of the climate talks, might give Republicans some leverage or at
least allow them to send a signal to the world about their opposition to a final
climate deal. Its important to make clear, I think, to the rest of the world that as these climate talks
approach, that Congress has the power of the purse, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said this week. In his
chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. But thats not going to happen.

2016 budget request, Obama asked lawmakers to provide $500 million for the fund,
but House and Senate appropriators have given him nothing. Congress has yet to finalize
its 2016 spending plan, though the deadline to do so Dec. 11 is the last day of the U.N.s climate talks,
symmetry that may give Republicans a chance to complicate the process.

Link Renewables
Climate and renewables action is politically polarizing
Obamas push causes fights
Pyper 16 [Julia Pyper, Senior Writer at Greentech Media, 1-13-2016, "Obama
Wins Praise as a Champion of Clean Energy Despite Political Gridlock," Greentech
Media, http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Obama-Wins-Praise-as-aChampion-of-Clean-Energy-in-a-Political-System-Plagu]
President

Obamas legacy on clean energy and climate will be widely considered one of

his greatest achievements -- and one of his most polarizing endeavors. In a recent victory, the
president helped finalize the most ambitious international climate agreement to date. In last nights State of the
Union address, the final one of his two-term presidency,

Obama engaged critics of his climate

action plan head on.

Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it, he said. Youll be pretty
lonely, because youll be debating our military, most of Americas business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific
community, and 200 nations around the world who agree its a problem and intend to solve it. Putting the science aside, the solutions to climate change
will also bolster the U.S. economy, he said. Why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the
future? While he cant take credit for everything, theres no denying the U.S. advanced energy sector has boomed on Obamas watch. Shortly after taking
office, Obama spearheaded the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which included more than $90 billion in government investment
and tax incentives to boost the clean energy economy. Investments were made in everything from advanced clean-energy manufacturing to efficiency
retrofits to smart meters. Those were serious dollars for clean energy -- an order of magnitude greater than what has been seen before, said Malcolm
Woolf, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at Advanced Energy Economy, who testified on the ARRA bill in 2009 as chair of the National
Association of State Energy Officials. The Recovery Act allocated roughly $3 billion for state energy programs. Obama built on this foundation by enacting
regulations that will double the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by 2025, as well as issuing the first-ever set of standards for heavy-duty vehicles. His
administration then turned to stationary polluters with the launch of the Clean Power Plan. Last August, the EPA finalized historic carbon regulations on
new and existing power plants that will cut pollution from the power sector by 32 percent by 2030 and spur investments in clean energy. In another major
win for clean energy, the Obama administration helped push through five-year extensions of the Production Tax Credit for wind and the Investment Tax
Credit for solar in the final moments of last year. "Obama got us past the tipping point" One indication that Obamas strategy has worked is that clean
technologies like wind and solar have reached the point where theyre economically viable, said Woolf. Wind power PPAs in the U.S. are now coming in
below 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, while utility-scale solar project prices have hit record lows and the overall solar industry booms. According to GTM
Research, cumulative solar capacity in the U.S. has grown by a factor of 33 over the course of Obamas presidency. At the same time, corporations are
buying more renewable energy than ever before, and a majority of companies have put in place some kind of sustainability plan. Furthermore, grid
operators are now starting to see renewable energy as a way to offer affordable, reliable electricity, rather than as a problem. Obama did not meet his
goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015, but Woolf still counts the initiative as a win. Arguably, Obamas push for electric vehicles
through research and regulations is responsible for spurring automakers from General Motors to Mercedes to Porsche to bring mainstream electric vehicles
to market. The entire suite of advanced energy technologies has been on an upswing. In 2014, the sector grew a record 14 percent -- five times faster

Woolf chalked up the

success of the advanced energy sector to the presidential prestige Obama
put behind the sector. He went to so many ribbon-cutting events highlighting this industry, said
Woolf. It helped encourage investor confidence and enabled these technologies to
than the GDP -- to a market worth of nearly $200 billion, according to AEE. In addition to specific policy actions ,

mature to the point where they reach scale. Were fairly optimistic [going forward], regardless of the result of the
presidential election, because we see the technologies being economically competitive in their own right, so that
were no longer dependent on the president being the cheerleader, he added. Obama

got us past the

tipping point.

Still earning his legacy While Obama has advocated for clean energy over the past seven
years, climate policy was not his top priority at the outset. The U.S. was supportive of a deal at the 2009
Copenhagen climate conference, but ultimately the talks failed, in part because of U.S. resistance. And in 2010,
Obama chose not to rally behind a Democrat-led climate change bill. Instead, the president focused his political

Climate became a much stronger focus of the

Obama presidency in his second term. That inaugural address was the turning point, Heather
Zichal, Obamas former climate change adviser, told the New York Times last fall. Over time, environmental
regulations emerged as an area where the White House could act without hitting
congressional roadblocks. It was also a strategic move. Obama could win support from progressives as
calls for climate action and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline intensified, led by groups like 350.org. But
despite his efforts, Obama still has some winning over to do. Spurred by the growing
strength and diversity of the climate movement, President Obama is the first U.S. president to
sincerely champion the fight against climate change , Annie Leonard, executive director of
Greenpeace USA, said in a statement. However, to secure his legacy, President Obama must
pursue solutions that match the scale of the problem , which means keeping fossil fuels in the
capital on his landmark healthcare law.

ground and putting the needs of the people ahead of the polluters. Obama said in his speech that he plans to

push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on
taxpayers and our planet. Environmental groups -- and oil and coal companies -- will surely be eager to learn more.
While U.S. oil and gas production is booming, many people argue that Obama has been a hindrance to the industry
overall. According to Frank Maisano, senior principal at the D.C. law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, Obamas drawn-out
rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline has also opened the door for opponents to block infrastructure projects for
whatever parochial reason -- that goes for pipelines and transmission projects needed for the Clean Power Plan.
The

way Keystone XL played out has made it much more difficult to win support for
all big infrastructure projects -- to build the type of infrastructure projects necessary to have renewable
energy projects built out, said Maisano. Obama has only paid lip service to the need for infrastructure
improvements, said Maisano, which is part of the reason why grid operators have pushed back so strongly against

As Obamas second term winds down, legal suits

against the Clean Power Plan continue, a number of states have moved to roll back their renewable
energy policies, and public opinion on climate change remains deeply divided. Many
prominent politicians continue to oppose climate action. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.),
the carbon rule. A great success. And a failure?

chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee (who once famously brought a snowball to the Senate floor
as evidence against global warming), firmly believes climate change is a hoax. Donald Trump and several other

Rubio says hes not skeptical," he

believes that Obamas climate policies will destroy our economy. Many of
Obamas critics also believe that his focus on climate in the wake of the Paris
terrorist attacks made the U.S. look weak on national security. Ironically, one of
Obamas greatest failings is that his advocacy for clean energy and climate
solutions may have turned these issues into political punching bags. The
iPhone 6 is not a partisan piece of technology; its a cool device that people like. Because Obama was
such a champion for clean energy, he inadvertently made clean energy
technologies more partisan than they should have been, said Woolf. So its
presidential candidates are also climate skeptics. And although Marco

interesting to see what might have happened had he not been as engaged. The industry might have lost a market
signal, but we might not have the partisan fights that we now seem to have. Obama actually acknowledged in his

the political divide thats grown over the past seven years -is one of his biggest missteps. Its one of the few regrets of my presidency -- that the
rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better, he
State of the Union address that
on all issues --

said. Obama pledged to try and bridge the divide during his remaining months in office, and called on all Americans
to change the system to reflect our better selves.

Obama spends PC past energy bills prove

Sheppard 9 [Kate Sheppard, 6-26-2009, "Obama puts political capital on
passage of climate bill," Grist, http://grist.org/article/2009-06-25-obama-climate-billpresser/]
Obama laid a significant chunk of his political capital on the table on Thursday,
calling on House members to support the climate and energy bill that will go to a vote on
President

Friday. Now it the time for us to lead. The energy bill before the House will finally create a set of incentives that will
spark a clean energy transformation of our economy, said Obama in his brief remarks delivered in the White House

I urge every member of Congress,

Democrat and Republican, to come together and support this legislation , he said. I
cant stress enough the importance of this vote. I know this is going to be a close vote , he added,
Rose Garden. (Watch the video at cspan.org | Read the full text.)

but said his message is to members who are still on the fence. We cannot be afraid of the future, and we cant be
prisoners of the past. Passing this bill, he said, fulfills an obligation to our constituents our children, and to Gods

His remarks stressed the energy independence and green job aspects of the bill, but
climate benefits. There is no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing
our planet in jeopardy, he said. Whether Obamas call will sway the fence-sitters remains
unclear. But the hope is that throwing his heft behind the bill will help it get the 218
votes needed to pass.
creation.

also

mentioned the

Renewable energy faces massive opposition Obama has to

push
Barron-Lopez 14 (Laura Barron-Lopez covers Congress for The Huffington Post.
Previously, she reported for The Hill and E&E Publishing's Greenwire. Her work has
also been published in The Oregonian, OC Register and Roll Call. Laura earned her
bachelors' from California State University, Fullerton. Pub: Pub: 5/9/14. Obama
doubles down on solar, energy efficiency in climate push
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/205669-obama-double-downs-on-solarenergy-efficiency)
President Obama will announce Friday that more than 300 private and public sector leaders are committing to up
their use of solar power to help U.S. communities cut carbon pollution and fight climate change. Last month the

administration called on governments and businesses to increase solar deployment,

and altogether more than 300 retailers, food services, hospitality, multifamily housing, cities, school districts , and
more are announcing new commitments Friday. The move is further proof that the
administration won't back down on its pledge to not only act if Congress won't,
but to instill Obama's second-term climate change legacy . On Tuesday, the
administration kicked off it's week of climate and clean energy events with the
release of its third national climate report, which confirmed that the drastic impacts of climate
change are affecting every region of the United States. And Friday morning Obama ends the week in Mountain View,
Calif., at a Wal-Mart store, where he will announce that the company has committed to doubling its on-site solar
energy projects at its U.S. stores, Sam's Clubs, and distribution centers by 2020. To support the demand for a
growing solar industry, there must be a skilled workforce, said White House climate and energy adviser Dan Utech.
He says that's why the Department of Energy will announce support for community college training programs in 49
states to help 50,000 workers find employment in the solar industry by 2020. The DOE and the Department of
Housing and Urban Development will partner to help advance educational opportunities in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics, the administration said. To keep the ball rolling, Obama will also announce $2 billion
in energy efficiency investments for federal buildings, adding to the $2 billion already in place. DOE will also issue
its final energy efficiency conservation standards on electric motors, and another for walk-in coolers and freezers.
The standards are expected to cut carbon pollution by roughly 158 metric tons through 2030, and save consumers

The clean energy push by the administration

comes as the Senate is struggling to pass a bill aimed at energy efficiency
itself. Possible votes on Keystone XL, natural gas exports, and the administration's
carbon regulations, however, may kill the bill. Despite severe push back from
Republicans in Congress, the administration is moving full-steam ahead on
its climate and energy initiatives. One senator said the administration without a
doubt has "upped its game" on the climate change front, which the new set of solar and
over $26 billion on their energy bills.

energy efficiency initiatives are meant to help mitigate

Link Trade
Plan costs capital trade deals are massively unpopular
Davis 16 [Bob Davis (senior editor, covers economics and China issues), 3-92016, "Free Trade Loses Political Favor," WSJ, http://www.wsj.com/articles/free-tradeloses-political-favor-1457571366]
After decades in which successive Republican and Democratic presidents have pushed to open U.S. and global

resentment toward free trade now appears to have the upper hand
in both parties, making passage this year of a sweeping Pacific trade deal far less
likely and clouding the longer-term outlook for international economic exchange. Many Democrats have
long blamed free-trade deals for big job losses and depressed wages, especially in
the industrialized Midwest, which has been battered over the years by competition
from lower-cost manufacturing centers in countries like Japan, Mexico and China. But one big
surprise Tuesday was how loudly trade fears reverberated among Republican voters in the
primary contests in Michigan and Mississippievidence, many observers say, of a widening
undercurrent of skepticism on the right about who reaps the benefits from
loosened trade restrictions. Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential
nomination, has expressed fervent opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact and
other trade deals, as has Sen. Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side. Democratic front-runner Hillary
Clinton, whose husband signed the North American Free Trade Agreement as president in 1994, now also
opposes the Pacific deal and has increasingly voiced doubts about trade in terms similar
to those of Mr. Sanders. Mr. Trump won the Michigan and Mississippi primaries by wide
margins, and among voters who were trade skeptics, his margin of victory
surpassed his overall margin. Trade jitters also helped propel Mr. Sanders to a
narrow victory in Michigan, where he frequently lambasted Mrs. Clinton for backing Nafta and for being
markets,

late in opposing the unratified TPP pact between a dozen Pacific rim nations. According to Michigan exit polls,
Democratic voters who believed trade deals reduce U.S. jobs backed Mr. Sanders by a 56% to 41% margin. And in
Mississippi, it was Republicans who said trade was a job killer, not Democrats, according to exit polls. Democrats

the Republican Party is

becoming like the traditional Democratic Party in its opposition to free trade , said
there by a 43% to 41% margin said trade boosted job growth. In some ways,

Tony Fratto, a former official in the George W. Bush administration who now consults with business on trade issues.
In recent years, he said, voters had joined the ranks of Republicans because of opposition to President Barack

Since Congress
approved Nafta, trade has become an increasingly divisive political issue.
Democrats have taken the lead in opposing new deals, saying the U.S. loses
millions of jobs due to imports produced by far cheaper labor in less developed countries.
Democratic support for free trade has declined over the years. Last year, only 28
Democrats in the House voted to give President Obama so-called fast-track
authority to negotiate trade deals, compared with 102 who voted for Nafta. Less
noticed has been faltering support among Republicans. In a June 2015 Wall Street
Obama, rather than a commitment to traditional GOP positions such as favoring free trade.

Journal/NBC news poll, taken shortly after the fast-track vote, overall respondents, by 34% to 29% margin, said free
trade hurt the U.S. But Republicans were far more negative than Democrats. GOP voters, by 38% to 28%, said free
trade harmed the U.S., while Democrats said trade helped by a 35% to 29% edge. Mr. Trump, who regularly argues
that the U.S. has been fleeced in trade negotiations with Mexico, China and Japan, has capitalized and expanded on
that anti-free-trade sentiment, said Patrick Buchanan, a populist Republican who used the trade issue to power his

Free trade has become what Mr. Buchanan calls a

voting issuemeaning one that attracts voters who care intensely about that
particular measureakin to gun rights and abortion. I dont think you can
negotiate a free-trade deal and have it go through, Mr. Buchanan said. Indeed,
challenge to President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Tuesday nights results show how difficult it would be in this environment for
congressional Republican leaders to seek passage this year of the TPP , a pact the White
House sees as a linchpin to its commercial and foreign-policy strategy to compete with Chinawhich isnt a party to
the dealin the Pacific region. Republican support helped keep the pact alive last year against heavy opposition
from Democrats, but the GOP backing has weakened sharply in recent months. Rep. Walter
Jones, a North Carolina Republican who generally opposes free-trade deals, said that the primaries would slow any

A vote on
the trade deal would create a campaign issue, he said. If the leadership starts pushing [TPP], it
effort in Congress to consider the TPP, which was finished last year but needs congressional approval.

would be a negative for the trade deal. Last year, Congress approved fast-track trade authority by a 219-to-211
vote. Fast-track approval means Congress can approve or disprove trade pacts but not amend them. Fifty-four
Republicans opposed the bill, which was widely seen as a prelude to a vote on TPP. Mr. Jones estimates that at least
an additional 20 to 25 Republicans would now oppose the deal itself. Proponents of the trade bill have similar
estimates. Rick Manning, president of the conservative Americans for Limited Government, said an anti-free trade
position has become a natural fit for Republicans worried about big government. Thats because the deals benefit
politically connected companies that can get the ear of U.S. negotiators, he argued. Trade deals represent
corporate cronyism at its worst, he said. In a survey of 1,200 people conducted for his group by Caddell
Associates, Republicans by a 59% to 4% margin said trade deals benefited other countries more than the U.S.
Fourteen percent said both sides benefited equally. Among Democrats, the edge was 35% to 12% for other
countries, with 26% saying both sides benefited. For years, trade experts dismissed opponents claims of
widespread harm caused by trade deals. Trade rejiggered jobs so that those laid off would be able to find new work
after a period of retraining, according to many experts. But more recently, there has been a rethinking of the costs,
spurred in part by the work of economists David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn of
the University of Zurich and Gordon Hanson of the University of California at San Diego. In a 2013 paper called The
China syndrome, the three economists attributed one-fourth of the decline in U.S. manufacturing employment
between 1990 and 2007 to competition from Chinese imports. In a follow-up paper this year, the three found that
employment in the U.S. is remarkably slow to rebound from Chinese import competition with wages and laborforce participation remaining depressed for at least a decade. Mr. Fratto, the former Bush administration official,

the stronger opposition to trade puts more of an onus on the Obama

White House and businesses to explain the benefits of trade , which include improved
productivity for competing firms and a greater array of imports and lower prices for consumer goods. Trade
deals were often promoted as a way to improve U.S. standing in the world by
deepening relations with allies, he said, rather than the ways it benefited ordinary Americans.
said

Trade is politically contentious Tons of lobbying opponents

Hook 15 (Janet, staff @ Wall St. Jnl, 6/12, Trade Bill Divides GOPs 2016 Presidential
Contenders, http://www.wsj.com/articles/trade-bill-divides-gops-2016-presidentialcontenders-1434103202)

Trade legislation in Congress is facing stiff criticism from a vocal quarter of the
GOP and has divided the partys 2016 presidential contendersa surprising split in a party that has
traditionally been a bastion of free-trade advocates. Most Republicans in Congress are expected to vote for fast

the bill has

been the target of a blizzard of criticism from tea-party allies, conservative
bloggers and talk-radio hosts. Those criticsincluding the conservative Breitbart website, radio host
Mark Levin, and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.)have dubbed the trade bill Obamatrade,
attacked it as another extension of power to President Barack Obama and sewn
suspicions about secret provisions of the trade agreement the president wants to
complete, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
track legislation to expedite action on international trade agreements, but outside the Capitol,

Link Taiwan
Taiwan policy is controversial Splits interest groups
Roberts 14 (Guy, PhD Asia Institute, U of Melbourne, US Foreign Policy and China: Bushs First
Term, p. google books)
Many in the USA see Taiwan as a beacon of regional democracy. a harbinger of the region's democratic future, and

Although generally supportive of Taiwan, different

groups in the US foreign policy establishment often view the island in very
different ways. The US Congress includes numerous influential individuals,
especially from the Republican Party, who have been strong supporters of Taiwan
often in the face of differing presidential priorities (this is sometimes exacerbated
by the Republican/Democrat domestic divide). Relations are further
complicated by Taiwan's democratic development away from authoritarianism, a trend
an ally which the US has a duty to protect.

which has encouraged an impulse toward that "dc jure" independence that would be intolerable to the mainland
regime. Democratization has allowed different opinions to be publicly expressed - some
call for independence, others fear that Taiwan's nascent democratic tradition might be curbed or suppressed by the

Although committed to Taiwan, US Presidents

since Nixon have tended to value closer engagement with China over the outright and
unquestioned protection of Taiwan. This often leads to tense battles within the US
polity - the Congress supports democracy in Taiwan, while the White House
supports closer Chinese engagement." The result has been a number of agreements reached
CCP should the island be reunited with the mainland.

that serve as the basis for US-China- Taiwan relations. These are the three Joint Communiques (of 1972. 1979, and
I982), and the I979 Taiwan Relations Act of the US Congress.

Taiwan lobby outweighs support

Yang 10 (Jian, sr. lecturer in IR @ U of Aukland, Dealing with the U.S. Congress: Beijings
Learning Curve, Sino-American Relations: Challenges Ahead, edited by Yufan Hao, p. google
books)

The Taiwan issue will remain a core issue in Beijing's effort to lobby Congress. Michael
Wessel, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said in 2()()S that although the
Taiwanese influence on Capitol Hill was still clearly stronger than Mainland China's influence, he was not so sure if

However, Taiwan's
influence on Capitol Hill is deep rooted. Since the late 1940s, Taiwan has fostered
good feelings on Capitol Hill and in the US public, which was highlighted by
congressional support for Lee Teng-huis visit to the United States in 1995. It was no exaggeration
to say that in the 1990s Taiwan had "an influential, well-heeled domestic constituency, which
has become an important source of financing for US political campaigns.""' The
Taiwan lobby was considered "one of the most effective lobbies in Washington.'""
Taiwan continued its lobbying efforts after 1995. From 1998 to 2004 the Taiwan Studies
Institute, which is closely' linked to the Taiwanese government, signed contracts
with the largest American public relations firm lnterpublic Group of Companies worth US$6.25
this would be the case five years later.''" That observation served as a warning to Taipei.

million. The institute also paid Cassidy 8: Associates USS7 million from 2000 to July 2003 and another US$1.08

Taiwan paid USS4.5 million to BG&R,

a lobbying firm close to the Republican Party, for a three-year contract." Taiwan also
has the advantage of less stringent scrutiny of its activities in the United States by
the FBI and American counterintelligence. This is rooted in Washington's long
history of support for the KMT government during World War II and the Cold War. While there are
concerns that Taipei's lobbying activities in the United States are sometimes questionable," Beijing's lobbying
million in 2005 for a one-and-a-half-year contract. Also in 2005,

is where American concerns are focused. For example, there was a widely publicized
investigation of an alleged effort by China to influence American domestic politics
prior to and during the Clinton Administration in 1997.
.

Link Outweighs Turn

Support is weak & outweighed by hawkish opposition
Ferguson 14 (Tim, 2/20, Asia-Pacific content @ Forbes, Where the China Lobby Meets Closed Doors:
Congress, http://www.forbes.com/sites/timferguson/2014/02/20/where-the-china-lobby-meets-closed-doorscongress/#93a89086d5d9)
Its true that congressional interest, at least in the House of Representatives, tends not to run toward international

you wont find a majority making another nations case at

nearly any time. But there are heritage heartstrings in many a state or districtand
ever more of them these days are Chineseand yet few voices are heard for
China. When Max Baucus left the Senate to be ambassador to the PRC, that subtracted one of the few reliable
allies of economic accommodation. On other matters, especially anything military, you wont find one
in a hundred (or a half-dozen in 535) who will cut China any slack. It would seem
to be barely in better standing than Vladimir Putins Russia remarkable. There is a U.S.-China
concerns and therefore

Working Group caucus in the House that is broadly open to Chinese views. According to Wikipedia, it has 56
members, 32 of them Democrats. (Those numbers include quite a mixMichele Bachmann is a member. Also, by

the
Congressional China Caucus, the other such grouping for the Middle Kingdom, is mostly
Republican and largely inclined to be watchful of Chinas rise. (This article,
comparison, the Congressional French Caucus, including senators, has 96 members.) Interestingly,

although from 2006, is still basically correct in describing the landscape on Capitol Hill.) Rather tellingly,

Congress remains far friendlier to Taiwan,

aka the Republic of China.

Engagement ensures gridlock Partisan ideologues will takeover the debate

Connelly 15 (Aaron, fellow @ Lowy Inst., Australian think tank, 9/25, CONGRESS AND ASIA-PACIFIC
POLICY: DYSFUNCTION AND NEGLECT, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/congress-and-asia-pacific-policydysfunction-neglect)
In recent years, however,

creative tension has descended into gridlock, with great

consequences for Asia-Pacific policy. The polarisation of the US public, and the rise
of more ideologically cohesive districts, have led to increasing polarisation in both
houses of Congress. The growing ideological chasm between Democrats and
Republicans on Capitol Hill has made even the most basic functions of Congress
difficult to achieve. On foreign policy, and particularly on Asia-Pacific policy, the loss in recent
electoral cycles of senior leaders who might have once delivered bipartisan
protection of important priorities has exacerbated the consequences of this decline,
with serious ramifications for US leadership in the world and in the Asia-Pacific region in particular.

Single issue opponents will unite to stifle the plan with

controversy
Lubman 4 (Stanley, Lecturer of Law and Visiting Scholar for the Center for the Study of Law and
Society, UC Berkeley, The Dragon As Demon: Images Of China On Capitol Hill,
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4099x6f8#page-2)

In Congress, alliances of partisans of single issues insist vocally on highly

negative views of China. Critics of China's human rights practices, including a
repressive criminal process and suppression of dissent, have joined with members who speak for
the religious right in decrying China' s birth-control policies and hostility to religions
not licensed by the state. Supporters of Tibetan independence and an autonomous

Taiwan add further heat to debate, as do others in whose geostrategic perspective China has already
become a threat to American security. Underlying the views of some, echoing the labor unions,
is a commitment to protectionism. One respected Senator suggested during the debates that
latent racism may lurk even deeper. These views cloud debate because they often
caricature a complex society and foster unconstructive moralizing rather
than analysis of the problems that they address. By demonizing China they
obstruct the formulation and maintenance of a coherent American policy toward
China and weaken Congress' contribution to making US policy.

That tubes support for the plan

Connelly 15 (Aaron, fellow @ Lowy Inst., Australian think tank, 9/25, CONGRESS AND ASIA-PACIFIC
POLICY: DYSFUNCTION AND NEGLECT, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/congress-and-asia-pacific-policydysfunction-neglect)

While few members of Congress are interested in Asia-Pacific policy, there are a
number of members, particularly in the House, who are interested in specific countries or
issues in the Asia Pacific. Their interest is often driven by a large immigrant or ethnic
population in their district, or personal background with an issue. These drivers are not unique to the AsiaPacific region. In the absence of concern for the broader regional picture, however, there is the risk that where
members of Congress develop or show an interest in the Asia Pacific, it will be a
narrow interest. For example, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, represents
a large number of ethnic Korean constituents in his southern California district. Royce has taken a particular interest
in North Korea issues, and has spoken out in favour of South Koreas claim in its territorial dispute with Japan,
despite longstanding US government policy to never take sides in third-party territorial disputes.[46] When
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Washington in April 2015, Royce delayed approval for Abes landmark
speech to a joint meeting of Congress over concerns, often expressed by Korean-Americans, about Abes view of

Royces advocacy on behalf of one

US ally at the expense of another makes it more difficult for the State Department
to balance the interests of its two Northeast Asian allies and encourage cooperation
between them. Other members have a long history of advocacy on a particular issue,
and view the region through the prism of that issue. This is particularly true of
human rights advocates on the Hill, many of whom question engagement with any
country in the region with a record of human rights abuse s, and discount efforts by
Japans wartime history.[47] Regardless of the merit of his positions,

US officials to work to improve the human rights records of all Asian countries as part of a broader regional strategy.
For example, in 2014, 70 per cent of the hearings concerning the Asia Pacific held by the House Foreign Affairs
Committee and its subcommittees focused on issues of human rights and democracy. Only 9 per cent of hearings
on the Middle East and 14 per cent of the hearings on Europe focused on human rights and democracy.[48]
Advocacy for democracy, human rights, and fair labour practices is a long-time feature of US foreign policy, and

members of Congress often seem to neglect

the need to incorporate that advocacy into a broader approach that recognises
other US interests in the region, if for no other reason than such an approach is
required to make progress on any issue at all, including human rights. This has been less
there is no suggestion here that it should not be. But

of a problem in the Senate, where, for example, Senator McCain has used his considerable credibility, as a victim of
Vietnamese torture when he was a prisoner of war, to argue for an approach that deepens engagement with Hanoi

the loss of other senior leaders who

can frame an issue more strategically, and the relative lack of interest in the
broader region, allow individual members to define the US relationship with a
particular country through the prism of a single issue. This is clearly unhelpful in the
conduct of diplomacy in the region.
while still advancing US advocacy for human rights there.[49] But

Spin ensures the plan is seen as boosting Americas rivals, not

as cooperation
Pei 12 (Minxin, 8/29, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, Everything You
Think You Know About China Is Wrong, http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/08/29/everything-you-think-youknow-about-china-is-wrong/)

Chinas declining fortunes have not registered with U.S. elites , let alone the American
Obamas much-hyped "pivot to Asia," announced last November, is premised
on the continuing rise of China; the Pentagon has said that by 2020 roughly 60 percent of the
Navys fleet will be stationed in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington is also considering deploying
seaborne anti-missile systems in East Asia, a move reflecting U.S. worries about
Chinas growing missile capabilities. In the lead-up to the Nov. 6 U.S. presidential election, both
Democrats and Republicans have emphasized perceived Chinese strength
for reasons of both national security and political expediency . Democrats use
Yet

public. President Barack

Chinas growing economic might to call for more government investment in education and green technology. In late
August, the Center for American Progress and the Center for the Next Generation, two left-leaning think tanks,
released a report forecasting that China will have 200 million college graduates by 2030. The report (which also
estimates Indias progress in creating human capital) paints a grim picture of U.S. decline and demands decisive
action. Republicans justify increasing defense spending in this era of sky-high deficits in part by citing predictions

The 2012
Republican Party platform, released in late August at the Republican National Convention, says, "In
the face of Chinas accelerated military build-up, the United States and our allies
must maintain appropriate military capabilities to discourage any aggressive or
coercive behavior by China against its neighbors." The disconnect between the
brewing troubles in China and the seemingly unshakable perception of Chinese
strength persists even though the U.S. media accurately cover China, in particular the countrys inner
fragilities. One explanation for this disconnect is that elites and ordinary Americans remain poorly
informed about China and the nature of its economic challenges in the coming
decades. The current economic slowdown in Beijing is neither cyclical nor the result of weak external demand for
that Chinas military capabilities will continue to grow as the countrys economy expands.

Chinese goods. Chinas economic ills are far more deeply rooted: an overbearing state squandering capital and
squeezing out the private sector, systemic inefficiency and lack of innovation, a rapacious ruling elite interested
solely in self-enrichment and the perpetuation of its privileges, a woefully underdeveloped financial sector, and

even for those who follow China, the

prevailing wisdom is that though China has entered a rough patch, its fundamentals
remain strong. Americans domestic perceptions influence how they see
their rivals. It is no coincidence that the period in the 1970s and late 1980s when Americans missed signs of
mounting ecological and demographic pressures. Yet

rivals decline corresponded with intense dissatisfaction with U.S. performance (President Jimmy Carters 1979

a China whose growth rate is falling from 10 to 8

percent a year (for now) looks pretty good in comparison with an America where
annual growth languishes at below 2 percent and unemployment stays above 8 percent. In the
eyes of many Americans, things may be bad over there, but they are much worse
here. Perceptions of a strong and pushy China also persist because of Beijings own
behavior. The ruling Chinese Communist Party continues to exploit nationalist
sentiments to bolster its credentials as the defender of Chinas national honor.
"malaise speech," for example). Today,

Chinese state media and history textbooks have fed the younger generation such a diet of distorted, jingoistic facts,
outright lies, and nationalist myths that it is easy to provoke anti-Western or anti-Japanese sentiments.

Even

more worrisome is Beijings uncompromising stance on territorial disputes with

Americas key Asian allies, such as Japan and the Philippines. The risk that a contest over disputed maritime
territories, especially in the South China Sea, could lead to real armed conflict makes many in the United States
believe that they cannot let down their guard against China.

Anti-China stance unites liberals & conservatives in a coalition

to oppose the plan
Jungkun 7 (Seo, PhD @ U of Texas, IR, Breaking with the Party: Preferences, Procedures, & Party Position Shifts in
Congress, p. google books)

The literature on Congress and foreign policy includes no shortage of scholarly works
pointing to legislator ideology as the key determinant for in voting decisions. The
more conservative a legislator is, the more likely he or she is to vote for "hawkish"
policies. I rely on DW-NOMINATE Scores provided by Poole and Rosenthal (1997) to gauge the impact of ideology
on members' voting decisions and changes in such decisions over time.')4 What is also interesting over the
issue of China's NTR extension is the emergence of an "ends-against-the-middle"
voting coalition (McRae I970. 51: Poole and Rosenthal I997, Nokken 2003). Those members of'
Congress with extreme ideological convictions tend to be most vocal against proChina policy on Capitol Hill, thus establishing a strange congressional coalition composed of both liberals and
conservatives. Poole and Rosenthal (1997) illustrate an odd alliance between conservative Senator Jesse Helms of
North Carolina and liberal Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts over foreign policy toward Central America.

Liberals and conservatives have different motivations for their bipartisan voting
coalition against China. Some liberal legislators opposed the granting of NTR to
China on the grounds that the Chinese government should have been punished for
its empty efforts at promoting human rights and improved environmental conditions in China.
Some conservative members voted to revoke China's NTR status because they
believed that they had to press China to protect religious freedom in the most populous
country in the world. A particularly strange partnership of China critics formed in the
Senate, where Charles E. Schumer, a liberal Democrat from New York. teamed up with
Lindsey Graham. a conservative Republican from South Carolina. Together, they co-sponsored
a measure that would impose a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports if China does not
revalue its currency, On March 2006, the Chinese government, even invited these two senators to Beijing to present
their side of the undervalued currency debate.

Opposition outweighs support

King 7 (Neil, 1/1, staff @ The Washingtonian, Beijing on the Potomac,
https://www.washingtonian.com/2007/01/01/beijing-on-the-potomac/)

China has, at best, a weak fan base in Congress, and always has. Fickle, Freeman
calls it. The Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, the missile-firing flare-up over Taiwan in 1995, the
spate of often flimsy espionage allegations d uring the late Clinton years: All of it left Chinas
image in tatters on Capitol Hill. Then came the loud and rancorous debate in 2000
over whether to bless China with most-favored-nation status in the run-up to Chinas joining
the World Trade Organization. The tempest went on for months in Congress, with pro-China
heavies like the US Chamber of Commerce, the US-China Business Council, and the Business Roundtable
duking it out with the more skeptical labor and human-rights groups. China won in
the end by 40 votes in the House and far more in the Senate, but for a while it looked like a
cliffhanger. So, five years later, does China have a lot more friends in Congress? The
US trade deficit with China, after all, has soared since 2000 from $83 billion to an anticipated $230
billion in 2006. Beijings ambassador to the US, the veteran America hand Zhou Wenzhong, puzzles over that
question for a minute during a chat one morning at the embassy. He rubs his chin. He sips his tea. He shifts in a
formal chair at the far end of a formal Chinese-style reception room. We

have converging interests, he

offers. So to that extent, yes, we have allies in Congress. Pressed to name one,
Zhou (pronounced Joe) thinks for a second and says, Well, theres Senator Byrd. Senator

Robert Byrd? The curmudgeonly 89-year-old from West Virginia who has voted
against basically every trade deal thats ever come before him, including the pivotal
2000 vote on China? Byrd, who railed against the influx of Chinese goods during
his reelection campaign last fall? Byrd, one of the staunchest protectionists on
Capitol Hill? The Byrd mention is funnyor sadon a couple of levels. China is now Americas fastest-growing
export market and our second-largest supplier of goods after Canada, having summarily shoved aside Japan and

imagine the ambassador from Japan or

Mexico or Canada having to hem and haw over naming a single solid friend in
Congress, and you get a feel for how strange, even precarious, Chinas position in
Washington really is.
then Mexico over the last two years for second place. So

Vocal opposition outweighs support

Lubman 4 (Stanley, Lecturer of Law and Visiting Scholar for the Center for the Study of Law and
Society, UC Berkeley, The Dragon As Demon: Images Of China On Capitol Hill,
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4099x6f8#page-2)

As Sino-American relations have changed, so have the institutional arrangements

for making China policy. Recent American scholarship teaches that since the end of the Cold War, the
role of Congress in making China policy has become greater and more complicated.
Robert Sutter has noted the multiplication of federal agencies involved in policy, a shift of power from the
executive branch, increased participat1'on by nongovernmental organizations (N G05), and " much less
consensus within Congress" on foreign policy .9 As Sutter has observed, " [B]ecause security issues
and opposition no longer dominate US foreign policy, economic interests, democratization abroad,
and human rights have greater prominence in policy making ." Robert Suettinger has cited
one study arguing that public apathy about foreign policy make it possible for politicians to "appeal to small
constituencies with strongly held views on foreign policy without concern that they will alienate moderate voters;" "
he cites another study asserting that "congressional

inputs into foreign policy are now more

likely to be negative and intentionally disruptive" and that "individual members of
Congress with single-issue agendas for China - human rights, nonproliferation,
abortion, and religious freedom - may have significant influence on the larger policy
agenda." Sutter has noted "the virulence of the debate over the China threat" and
the "often exaggerated congressional assertions about negative features of the
Chinese government' s behavior"

Opposition has a debating advantage over support

Lubman 4 (Stanley, Lecturer of Law and Visiting Scholar for the Center for the Study of Law and
Society, UC Berkeley, The Dragon As Demon: Images Of China On Capitol Hill,
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4099x6f8#page-2)

The arguments of members of Congress on abortion, religious freedom, and dissent

are grounded in domestic issues of high "symbolic" significance to some Americans.
Such arguments, however, are one-dimensional, and project American value s and
institutions onto a different society and culture without nuance or awareness of the difficulty of
transplanting those values and institutions. As already noted, these critics of China give no hint that
American leverage over China's domestic policies might be extremely limited . Nor is
there any evidence of recognition that considerable time would be required to realize any program of political

Free from doubt, adamant in their moralism, unrelenting in

their emotional criticism, and insistent on expressing the most idealistic
representation of American values, the members of Congress who form an antireform undertaken in China.

China coalition have a significant debating advantage over those members

who favor engagement. The latter must look to a future in which, they hope,
economic and political reform will grow in a China benefited by trade, foreign
investment, and a peaceful international environment. That future is uncertain, but
the critics who have been quoted here can express their beliefs and hopes
buttressed by a moral certainty that pro-engagement members cannot
affect.

AT: Plan is Popular

Opponents dont care about details of the plan Theyll link
unrelated issues like human rights to all Chinese engagement
Lubman 4 (Stanley, Lecturer of Law and Visiting Scholar for the Center for the Study of Law and
Society, UC Berkeley, The Dragon As Demon: Images Of China On Capitol Hill,
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4099x6f8#page-2)

It is probably too much to expect congressional critics of China to avoid linking

Chinese human rights abuses to trade-related sanctions in the future, even if WTO rules present
obstacles to such linkage. It is relevant, however, that some of the NGOs that are most actively trying to
influence Congressional views and votes on human rights issues have adopted a nuanced
position on the relationship between trade with China and US policy toward the Chinese government's treatment of
its citizens. Even when human rights issues were linked to MFN treatment in the past , some
human rights activists privately admitted that they preferred to maintain the trade relationship that MFN made

especially if Congress is asked to affect China' s domestic policies

and institutions by applying trade-related sanctions , might some members of Congress be more
flexible than they have previously been? The human rights critics, however, may not be able to
distance themselves from others who criticize religious persecution, became they
support each others' position. Any faint hope that narrow and dogmatically negative
views of China might be tempered is no more than a whistle in the dark , but the debates
that have been quoted here suggest that there is a good deal of darkness in Congress that needs
to be illuminated. Unfortunately, the groups in Congress that have been identified here as
anti-Chinese gather strength from their numbers taken together, and are more likely
than not to continue to join forces, especially on the economic issues that grew prominent
in 2003. On these latter issues, moreover, Congressional emotions are understandably fueled
by knowledge of the pain of constituents who lose jobs because their employers
move manufacturing activities to China or close in the face of competition from
China.
possible." in the future,

AT: Public Opinion Turn

Public support is divided so anti-China ideologues will hold
sway
Gries 14 (Peter Hays, Harold J. and Ruth Newman Chair and director of the Institute for
US-China Issues at the University of Oklahoma, Red China and the Yellow Peril: How
Ideology Divides Americans over China,
http://www.ou.edu/uschina/texts/Gries.2014.JEAS.Red_China.pdf)

polarized public opinion over China could

come to play a larger role in the making of US China policy. The electoral connection
Recent changes in the US electoral system suggest that

ensures that politicians who want to be reelected will pay careful attention to the international attitudes of their

For the most part, however, the views of the average

voter no longer matter to our elected politicians. The median voter (Downs 1957) is
less and less relevant today because the majority of House and Senate districts
have become hyperpartisan. The Souths partisan realignment , begun during the civil rights
movement, is now largely complete (Valentino and Sears 2005). And Americans are increasingly
choosing to live in communities of the like-minded: liberals on the coasts or in big
cities, conservatives in the heartland or the suburbs (Bishop with Cushing 2008). With this
ideological self-sorting and gerrymandering, the majority of congressional districts
today have become so deeply blue or red that the general election outcome has
become a foregone conclusion. Statistician Nate Silver (2012) estimates that just 8 percent of
House districts today are competitive, while a remarkable 56 percent are landslide
districts. The action in US electoral politics today is therefore largely in the
primaries. And primary voters, Gary Jacobson (2012, 1625) has shown, are more ideologically
extreme than general election voters, especially in the Republican Party. To avoid
being primaried, therefore, politicians today increasingly pander to the ideological
extremes of their parties. This exacerbates conflict and gridloc k, not just on domestic
economic and cultural issues like the budget and abortion but on foreign policy issues like China as
core constituents (Aldrich et al. 2006).

well.

Congress doesnt follow the polls

Newport & Shapiro 13 (Frank, Gallup, & Robert, Columbia U. Pf of Journalism, POLLING AND DEMOCRACY:
REPORT OF THE AAPOR TASK FORCE ON PUBLIC OPINION AND LEADERSHIP,
https://www.aapor.org/AAPORKentico/AAPOR_Main/media/MainSiteFiles/Final_Task_Force_Report_September_2_2013w_LOGO.pdf)

There is less information available about public opinion and members of Congress
and leaders at other governmental levels. While U.S. Senators and the few at large U.S. Representatives may have

the degree to which most U.S. representatives

have regular access to polls specifically in their districts has not been determined . As
noted in the older Miller and Stokes study (1963) cited earlier, members of Congress perceptions of
their constituencies opinions almost certainly did not come from opinion polls , as they
were unlikely to have conducted them. Where it has been possible to compare legislators or
other leaders relevant perceptions of public opinion with measures of public
opinion, some early studies suggested their perceptions were fairly good, particularly on salient
issues but less so on others such as foreign policy; more recent research has found
significant misreading of public opinion (see Miller and Stokes 1963, Hedlund and Friesema1972, Kull
access to media and other polls at the state level,

and Destler 1999, Kull and Ramsey 2002, Kull 2004, and Kull et al., 2011).

Lobbying outweighs general public opinion

Newport & Shapiro 13 (Frank, Gallup, & Robert, Columbia U. Pf of Journalism, POLLING AND DEMOCRACY:
REPORT OF THE AAPOR TASK FORCE ON PUBLIC OPINION AND LEADERSHIP,
https://www.aapor.org/AAPORKentico/AAPOR_Main/media/MainSiteFiles/Final_Task_Force_Report_September_2_2013w_LOGO.pdf)

Although all adult citizens in a politicians area of representation in theory have an equal weight at the ballot box,

elected leaders in reality may not regularly pay equal attention to

all segments of their constituency or electorate. Political scientists have identified
subconstituencies that for Senators and members of Congress can attain
significantly disproportionate importance. These can vary by policy issue. These
subconstituencies might be defined in term of core electoral supporters,
increasingly including campaign donors, and those with whom members of
Congress have regular contact as related specific ways that they serve individual or groups of
for a variety of reasons,

constituents, or related to services from the federal government that they bring back to the district (see Mayhew

A recent study of congressional

representation by Kristina Miler (2010), based on a number of interviews with staff
members in a sample of congressional offices, is striking in that most of the long list
of subconstituency opinions of concern to the legislators on the policy issues the
study examined were not of the sort that can be readily found and extracted from
sample surveys. These subconstituencies instead consisted of entities such as
business leaders, physicians, patients, organized labor, farmers, senior citizens, insurance companies,
1974, Fenno 1978, Fiorina 1989, Bishin, 2000, 2009).

attorneys, environmentalists, consumers, utilities, veterans, oil and gas, mining, Native Americans, oil and gas

members of Congress were

involved in representing these subconstituencies interests through a process that
did not reflect corruption but rather a more natural consequence of the
psychological effect of the access of these groups. Legislators too apparently make
use of information shortcuts (heuristics) in ascertaining and representing the preferences of
their constituents.
companies, sportsmen, farmers, and state government. The study found that

National public opinion isnt key to Congress; theyre local

leaders
Newport & Shapiro 13 (Frank, Gallup, & Robert, Columbia U. Pf of Journalism, POLLING AND DEMOCRACY:
REPORT OF THE AAPOR TASK FORCE ON PUBLIC OPINION AND LEADERSHIP,
https://www.aapor.org/AAPORKentico/AAPOR_Main/media/MainSiteFiles/Final_Task_Force_Report_September_2_2013w_LOGO.pdf)

political leaders can maintain that national poll results are not useful for
learning about the relevant opinions of their constituents at some other geographic level.
The freely available polling data in the media or on websites or otherwise publically
available may not have the information about public opinion they most need. This is
particularly true for state and local leaders interested most in state and local issues
whereas the available data cover only national issues and the opinions of national samples. Still, politicians
insistence that my district is different on national issues is contradicted by
research that has shown that on many major issues the geographic variation is small if not trivial (see Kull
Further,

2004).3

AT: China Lobby

Anti-lobbying backlash increases the link
Wagreich 13 (Samuel, student @ Harvard Law, B.S. in journalism, legal studies, and Chinese
language and culture at Northwestern University, LOBBYING BY PROXY: A STUDY OF CHINAS
LOBBYING PRACTICES IN THE UNITED STATES 1979-2010 AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR FARA,
academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A170072)
This study levels another blow against the lobbying transparency framework by demonstrating the inadequacy of the FARA reports. As this work has
shown, data mined from FARA disclosures can quite effectively complement other methods of research in elucidating Chinese lobbying practices and
deriving spending trends of Chinese foreign agents, but as a stand-alone system, the foreign lobbyist registration statute fails in multiple respects.
Additionally, as evidenced by the LDA disclosures and scholarly research, FARA misses an entire universe of corporate lobbying that is conducted on
Chinas behalfa universe that often spends more than the very small universe that FARA documents. Corporate lobbying by proxy is clearly the method
that dominates the Washington lobbying landscape, as corporations have often shelled out millions of dollars a year to lobby for China in order to endear
themselves to Chinese representatives. And while the thought of corporations lobbying on behalf of their own economic interests is neither new nor novel,
the phenomenon of quintessentially U.S. multinational companies working with a foreign government to subvert the economic interests of the United
States absolutely is. As China transforms into the worlds next superpower, it appears that U.S. corporations may chase it with profligate sycophancy.
Either compelled by profit margins, or by an altruistic sense of cosmopolitanism, it seems that the great torrents of U.S. ingenuity will come to disentangle
their interests from that of the United States. Therefore, in order for the United States to create a bulwark against a manifesting Fifth Column, it should
revise FARA in a way that forces these corporate proxies to disclose their communications with the Chinese government. The efficacy of this change is

the notion of public stigma might be

enough to forestall the growing ties between a rising China and U.S.
multinational corporations. This is unless what appears to be a mounting corporate
rejection of Chinas goalsas evidenced by Caterpillars lobbying efforts begins to take sway. It
is possible that, during the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. companies viewed China as the new
business frontier where the next trillion dollars would be made. However, through its
abusive business practices that castigate U.S. companies , China has
demonstrated little to no regard for the health of U.S. corporations . Therefore, it seems
likely that a backlash, orchestrated by Congress and backed by U.S.
corporations, might come to bring Chinas lobbying by proxy efforts within
Washington to light and keep them at bay.
somewhat dubious, but as Chinese interests have already demonstrated,

Corporate lobbies have turned on China due to trade

restrictions
Reuters 16 (3/16, Ties will progress no matter who wins U.S. election: China's Li,
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-usa-idUSKCN0WI09L)

U.S. business lobbies say a

negative list of prohibited and restricted industries for foreign investors is still too
broad and must be whittled down. Uncertainty about the direction of China's reform
policies was "softening confidence ", John Frisbie, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, told
Chinese officials have repeatedly pledged to lower market access barriers, but

Reuters. "If we could move to reciprocal treatment that would match the U.S. list, that would be great," he added.

Lobbying spin increases the link

King 7 (Neil, 1/1, staff @ The Washingtonian, Beijing on the Potomac,
https://www.washingtonian.com/2007/01/01/beijing-on-the-potomac/)

a general clumsiness on the PR front is still true for China writ large
in Washington. Veteran China hands tell stories on deepest backgroundof Chinas
longstanding penchant for delivering testy formal protest letters over even the
smallest perceived slights. The brouhaha in 2005 over whether Chinese energy company Cnooc Limited
For all the progress,

might gobble up Unocal stirred a flurry of such protests, as have the repeated threats by some in the Senate to
impose stiff tariffs on Chinese imports unless Beijing loosened controls on its currency. The

Chinese
Embassy can be pretty ham-handed at times, says one top Senate staffer, who
claims to have a file stuffed with barbed embassy letters. The Cnooc tiff in the summer of

2005 set off a squall on Capitol Hill and showed how unprepared Beijing was to respond. Lawmakers within days

Chinese officials,
stunned at the backlash, got testy in return, accusing Congress of singling out China
for rough treatment.
were describing Cnoocs $18.5-billion bid to buy Unocal as a threat to US national security.

Opposition has the upper hand; lobbies are split

Gries 14 (Peter Hays, Harold J. and Ruth Newman Chair and director of the Institute for US-China Issues at
the University of Oklahoma, Red China, Free Asia, and the Yellow Peril: How Ideology Divides American Liberals
and Conservatives over East Asia, http://www.ou.edu/uschina/texts/Gries.Libs.Cons.Asia.class.pdf)
Will this delicate balance endure? While politicians from both political parties have long sought to use China against

Republican politicians today appear to have begun

utilizing anti-China tactics more frequently. Republican campaign ads frequently
invoke the Red Menace and Yellow Horde views of China, appealing to
conservative fears of both communism and Asians. Meanwhile, pro-China business
groups, so united in the 1990s as apologists for China during the fight against President Clinton over Chinas MFN
status, may now be dividing over China. During the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-9, the Chinese
government made the case to its people that the Chinese economic model was
superior to the Wests, contributing to greater Chinese assertiveness and tougher policies towards the
Western business world. In my more than two decades in China, I have seldom seen the
foreign business community more angry and disillusioned than it is today, China
business expert James McGregor (2010) wrote for Time magazine. Anti-foreign attitudes and
policies in China have been growing and hardening since the global economic
crisis. This recent development raises an important question. If business Republicans become
internally divided over China policy, and stop counterbalancing the anti-China
leanings of Main Street conservatives and their elected representatives, what is to
keep the Republican Party from moving towards a substantially tougher China
policy? We may be poised for a significant change in the politics of China policy on
Capitol Hill.
their political opponents in their campaigns,

Corporations have turned on China

Drezner 10 (Daniel, 7/20, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, The death of the China lobby?,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/07/20/the-death-of-the-china-lobby/)
Obama could be right, but on one key dimension his bargaining hand will actually be stronger than those of past

China, by continuing to alienate and frustrate western multinational

corporations, is also effectively weakening the strongest pro-China lobbies in
both Washington and Brussels. As Rachman notes: Were it not for the power of big business, the relationship
between the US and China might have gone sour years ago. There are forces on both sides of the
Pacific Chinese nationalists, American trade unionists, the military establishments
of both countries that would be happy with a more adversarial relationship. For the
past generation it has been US multinationals that have made the counter-argument
that a stronger and more prosperous China could be good for America. So it is ominous, not just for
business but for international politics, that corporate America is showing
increasing signs of disillusionment with China . In the past, American
business has acted as the single biggest constraint on an anti-Chinese backlash in
the US. If companies such as GE, Google and Goldman Sachs qualify their support for China or
refuse to speak up, the protectionist bandwagon will gather speed. The Chinese
presidents.

government, of course, is not stupid. Chinas growing confidence in dealing with the US, and the world in general, is
still matched by a cautious desire to avoid conflict. At strategic moments, the Chinese government is likely to make
tactical concessions whether on Google or the currency in an effort to head off a damaging conflict with the US.

with American business and the American public increasingly restive, the risks of
miscalculation are growing.
But

China lobby is weak

Hutzler 13 (Kyle, 7/2, unior in Calhoun College, Yale University, majoring in Economics. He has recently
returned from several months in China and is interested in American economic competitiveness issues. He has
previously interned at the US International Trade Commission, Does America Need a Stronger China Lobby?,
https://chinahandsmagazine.org/2013/07/02/does-america-need-a-stronger-china-lobby/)

China,
consistent with the normal practice of international relations, has traditionally engaged the US
political system through the executive branch. In the past decade, however, China has initiated
Since the normalization of relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the United States,

efforts to significantly deepen its relationship with Congress. The intensification of Chinese engagement with
Congress is driven in part by a shift in the nature of economic relations between the two nations as Chinese entities
seek to enter the US market, but is also attributable to a moderation in support from US corporations which have

Despite Chinas heightened engagement with Congress,

its influence remains modest. Going forward, the risk of more volatile bilateral relations
driven by hostile congressional actions would suggest the need for further
cultivation of Sino-Congressional relations not simply for Chinas sake but for that of the US as
historically lobbied on Chinas behalf.

well.

Chinese low-key lobbying wont work

King 7 (Neil, 1/1, staff @ The Washingtonian, Beijing on the Potomac,
https://www.washingtonian.com/2007/01/01/beijing-on-the-potomac/)
Ironicallyif only because the deal was already in the works at the time of the Cnooc stink China

that same
month finally gave in to local culture and hired its own lobbying outfit, Washington
heavyweight Patton Boggs. Pundits heralded the signing as a sea change, as Beijing for ages had sniffed at

But by Beltway standards the retainer, $22,000 a

month, was a pittance. Nor has the contract grown much . Congressional staffers say that
influence peddling as contrary to communism.

Patton Boggs has served mainly as a writer of letters and an opener of doors on Capitol Hilldoors, some say, that
China could just as easily have opened on its own. Patton Boggs declines to talk about its work. So for the moment,

Chinas leap into the lobbying world looks more like a hop. We are still
experimenting with this, says Ambassador Zhou . He acknowledges that lobbyists can help in
communications and are useful in interpreting the strange ways of American political culture. But hes not
predicting a boom in Chinese spending on lobbyists anytime soon. We are not in a
hurry, he says.

AT: Climate Lobby

Climate lobbies lose oil and gas outspend them massively
Mackinder 10 [Evan Mackinder, 8-23-2010, "Pro-Environment Groups
Outmatched, Outspent in Battle Over Climate Change Legislation," OpenSecrets
Blog, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/pro-environment-groups-wereoutmatc/]
It was supposed to be their time. With significant majorities in Congress, a president promising action
and favorable public opinion all on their side, many environmentalists believed their political stars had properly
and finally aligned. Sensing the unique opportunity to address global warming on a national scale,

environmental interest groups poured considerable capital into federal lobbying

expenditures in an effort to topple their significantly more wealthy foes in the
energy industry whose political standing appeared uncharacteristically wobbly. At the height of the legislative
push, during 2009, pro-environmental groups spent a record $22.4 million on federal
lobby efforts. That is double the average expenditure between 2000 and 2008. Advocacy groups lobbied
independently of, and in partnership with, like-minded corporations. Industry leaders the Nature Conservancy,
Environmental Defense Fund and World Wildlife Fund hit hardest, investing more than $6 million. The US Climate
Action Partnership, an unprecedented conglomeration of leading advocacy groups, energy businesses and some of

Yet even as pro-environment groups

seemed poised to capitalize on favorable trends, moneyed opponents girded for
a fight with more financial capital than ever before. Clients in the oil and gas
industry unleashed a fury of lobbying expenditures in 2009, spending $175 million
easily an industry record and outpacing the pro-environmental groups by nearly
eight-fold, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis. Some of the largest petroleum
companies in the world together spent hundreds of millions of dollars in various
attempts to influence politics during the past 18 months ExxonMobil, the industry leader in 2009, spent
$27.4 million in lobbying expenditures that year more than the entire pro-environment lobby. And in July,
congressional debate on global warming stopped cold. In other words, Goliath
whipped David. The way it turned out was a huge disappointment , to put it mildly,
the U.S. largest producers, spent $1 million independently.

Nathan Wilcox, the Federal Global Warming Program Director for Environment America, one group that lobbied
heavily on comprehensive climate change legislation, told OpenSecrets Blog. The

opposition outspent

us, and they took it to a new level this time.

MOMENTUM GIVES WAY TO DEFEAT Though only

recently coming to a head, the battle over climate change policy and subsequent dramatic increase in political
spending began a few years earlier for both of these groups. Energy and climate change became major issues for
both groups following the Democratic sweep of the congressional mid-year elections in 2006. Environmental groups
scored major victories in the 2008 election cycle, betting heavily on a Democratic majority and the presidential
candidacy of Barack Obama. Individuals and political action committees contributed nearly $5.6 million to political
candidates in 2007 and 2008. Ninety-four percent of the total went to Democrats. These same groups favored
Obama, who campaigned on a promise to aggressively tackle global warming, if elected.

Pro-environment

groups poured more than $1.2 million into his campaign , donating to his campaign over
Democratic rival Hillary Clintons by a seven-to-one margin. Oil and gas groups again outspent proenvironmental groups considerably, and with their own partisan slant. With more
than $35.6 million, individuals and political action committees contributed far more,
at a more than six-to-one rate. Seventy-seven percent of contributions from this
industry went to Republicans during the 2008 cycle. Still, it was pro-environmental groups that
backed the winning candidates. And it was pro-environmental groups who carried the political momentum into 2009
and the first legislative battleground in the House of Representatives. Advocacy groups pushed hard for a bill that
would tackle global warming by placing an economy-wide cap on carbon emissions. Major industry players lobbied
heavily in the first half of the year. Established leaders favoring the legislation the Environmental Defense Fund,
the Natural Resource Defense Council, the Sierra Club all lobbied heavily, bringing the industry to more than $4.7
million during the first quarter. In the American Security and Clean Energy Act (H.R. 2454), which passed the House

of Representatives in June 2009, most saw a serious victory. Wesley Warren, director of programs for the Natural
Resources Defense Council, today calls the Houses passage of H.R. 2452 proof that money isnt the final arbiter
in legislative matters. Its not only about the money, he told OpenSecrets Blog. Having money helps, but the
other side will always have more and they dont always win. Far from united on the issue, however, many
environmental activist groups cried foul over perceived carve-outs for special interests, citing massive amounts of
carbon offsets given to energy and coal companies, which would exempt large parts of the industries from a cap on

Greenpeace, a group that is well-known for its environmental activism and which also
lobbied on the bill in 2009, went on record as not supporting the legislation. It called H.R. 2454 a victory
for lobbyists from industries of oil, coal and others. Indeed, looming over the
negotiations throughout the first half of the year was the oil and gas industrys
influential shadow. During the first half of the year, oil and gas groups spent more than
$86.5 million on legislative influence. Some of the largest oil companies in the world
who double as industry spending leaders lobbied heavily on H.R. 2454.
carbon emissions.

ConocoPhillips, Chevron Corp, ExxonMobil and U.S. petroleum conglomerate Koch Industries each individually spent
millions of dollars lobbying Congress that quarter . Each listed H.R. 2454 repeatedly on their federally mandated
lobbying reports in 2009. It was a major job-killer, Bill Bush, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute,
a trade association that represents oil and gas interests, told OpenSecrets Blog. It wasnt an efficient way to go
about the problem of climate change it would have placed a great burden on those Americans who use and are

The fight between pro-environmental and oil and

gas groups would only grow more bitter as the fight shifted to the notoriously slow-moving Senate.
employed by oil and natural gas companies.

Center for Responsive Politics Researcher Matthias Jaime contributed to this report. Negotiations over legislation to
reform the nations health care system had inflamed an already deep partisan divide between Democrats and
Republicans. It was the perfect situation for opponents of climate change legislation: As Democrats wrangled with
the moderate factions of their party over health care, oil and gas groups hammered away in the background. In the

the oil and gas industry lobbed about $163

million at Congress, bringing their 18 month total to nearly $250 million . Many of the
year following the Houses initial passage of H.R. 2454,

same leading oil and gas interests lobbying on H.R. 2454 also focused on the Senate versions of the legislation
the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733), sponsored by Senators John Kerry (Mass.) and Barbara

By the time it was over in July of

the oil and gas industry had outspent
environmental interests more than seven-to-one.
Boxer (Calif.), and which later became known as the American Power Act.
this year, with legislation stalling out in the Senate,

Energy industry lobbies crush climate action more resources.

Pezzey 14 [John C. V. Pezzey, Fenner School of Environment and Society,
Australian National University, The influence of lobbying on climate policies; or,
why the world might fail, Environment and Development Economics / Volume 19 /
Special Issue 03 / June 2014, pp 329 332,
http://people.anu.edu.au/jack.pezzey/Pezzey2014EDE.pdf]
How can the malign and growing influence of lobbying on global climate policies be
checked? In this short piece I link some wide-ranging suggestions for academic research by environment and
development economists that is needed to further this aim, with the key idea in Acemoglu and Robinsons (2012)

sustained, very long-term economic growth

through national industrial revolutions requires inclusive institutions that distribute
political power broadly over a nations economic, class and geographical sectors. This
Why Nations Fail. Their book argues strongly that

is because long-term growth needs technical innovations, which cause creative destruction (structural adjustment)
of existing technologies, which in turn harms the interests of existing elites. If elites are too powerful, they will block
new technologies, so as to keep their powers to extract rents from the rest of society, and the nation will then fail
(to grow sustainably). To apply this idea to world development, I will assume the aim is to sustain growth in
wellbeing, not in GDP; and that uncontrolled carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions will seriously damage wellbeing,
particularly of poor people in developing countries (Mendelsohn et al., 2006). Any reasonable target for carbon
control then needs a climate-technology revolution in the world economy (Barrett, 2009), hence globally inclusive

Prospects for that are dim. Government

provision of education, clear and enforceable property rights, etc., were important
institutions to enable globally creative destruction.

enablers of past industrial revolutions, but more important was national

governments allowing innovation in response to free-market relative prices. By
contrast, a climate-technology revolution needs new, global governance for driving innovation,
including creating sustained, substantial and widespread carbon pricing schemes if the revolution is to be remotely

But global climate governance is weak, and recently seems to be getting

weaker. Reasons include falling public concern for environmental issues since the 2008
global financial crisis, and rising denial of climate science (Jacques et al., 2008), but the reason
focused on here is the resurgence of lobbying (rent-seeking) by energy-intensive
companies. In accordance with Olsons (1971) general principle, lobbying is made easier by
these companies concentration compared to environmental interests,
which are spread over billions of consumers, hundreds of countries, and many
generations. Such lobbying furthers the interests of the planets elites elites which, from
a global perspective, include most voters in rich countries and in recent years lobbying seems to
be increasingly calling the tune by blocking effective climate policies. Elites
are thereby still allowed to emit almost as much carbon as they please , and to extract
cost-effective.

current, private benefits in return for costs imposed on future generations, especially poor people in developing
countries. So what economic research (interpreted broadly here!) could help make global climate policy
institutions more inclusive? One suggestion is that research should focus less on pure, theoretically welfaremaximizing carbon price mechanisms, which auction all tradable carbon permits or allow no carbon tax thresholds,
and more on politically pragmatic mechanisms that allow free permits or thresholds to be any fraction of controlled
emissions (e.g., Pezzey and Jotzo, 2012). Pure mechanisms, assuming their carbon price is high enough to cut
emissions substantially, are likely to fail politically, at least initially, solely because of lobbying resistance to the
resulting revenue transfers to government (Pezzey and Jotzo, 2013), before even considering resistance to the
creative destruction that would follow any substantial pricing. Most recent literature (e.g., Tietenberg, 2013) broadly
accepts such policy realism, and key papers have highlighted the tight limits needed on free permits or tax
thresholds to avoid the injustice of giving polluters large windfall profits (e.g., Bovenberg and Goulder, 2001; Sijm et
al., 2006), but several authors still study or even recommend pure mechanisms. However, to risk over-generalizing

recently increased lobbying seems

to be making widespread carbon pricing, however pragmatic, ever less
likely. What can climate economists do about that? One answer would be counter-lobbying. Many lobbying
from mainly Australian and American policy developments,

claims about probable dire effects of carbon pricing are wildly exaggerated, and readily refuted by routine economic

communicating this effectively needs rapid, tireless, media

repetition of the nearly obvious far from the original research expected from
academics. A Sceptical Climate Economics website , to match SkepticalScience.com, might help,
but it would be laborious to maintain, as policy debates are predominantly national and ever-shifting.
modelling or case histories. But

Other interests outweigh climate lobbies eight-to-one

Lavelle 9 [Marianne Lavelle, 3-16-2009, "An Army of Lobbyists Readies for Battle
on the Climate Bill," Yale Environment 360,
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/an_army_of_lobbyists_readies_for_battle_on_the_climat
e_bill/2131]
If the stage is now set for the climate battle to begin, there is no shortage
of combatants. A Center for Public Integrity analysis shows that, by the end of last year, more than
770 companies and interest groups had hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to
influence federal policy on climate change. Thats an increase of more than 300 percent in just five
years, and means that Washington can now boast more than four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Some of the lobbyists, like those representing the U.S. Chamber, clearly are seeking
to derail any federal effort to mandate a reduction in fossil fuel emissions .
But others have more subtle agendas they seek to blunt the costs, or tailor any new climate
policy to their narrow agendas. Some just want a slice of that revenue stream. Others hope to shape the

rules of the bazaar in the market-based system that the politicians, including Obama, favor for grappling with global

the growth in lobbyists signals not only a redoubling of efforts by the

energy industry and manufacturers who dominated the scene five years ago but the
addition of a slew of new interests, from the bankers on Wall Street to the officials
running public transit on Main Street. Some longtime climate action advocates welcome the
warming. So

newcomers to the party. They have a kind of Realpolitik rationale: As a practical matter, they believe support will
build among the politicians as more interests like agriculture, financiers, builders, and even forward-looking
manufacturers and power companies see what they could gain in a carbon-reduction regime. Perhaps theyre right.

Maybe the sum of all lobbies, as U.S. energy policy has been famously described, will this time
add up to a positive for the planet. But theres more reason to fear that
climate policy will die at the hands of special interests than there is to
believe that special interests can bring climate policy to life. Look at what happened
to the climate bill sponsored last year by Connecticut Independent Joseph Lieberman and
Virginia Republican John Warner. With the legislation being debated last spring just as U.S. gasoline prices made
their historic climb to more than $4 a gallon, the Chamber of Commerce and other business opponents focused on

The Chamber warned of job

losses and economic hardship, with memorable ads featuring energy-starved
Americans cooking eggs over candles and jogging to work on auto-free streets.
Proponents of climate legislation were able to summon economic studies
including from the governments own experts challenging the grim predictions of
the Chamber and others. But when push came to shove, the bill garnered only 48
votes, and nine of those came from the infamous Gang of 10 Democrats who soon revealed they would have
how climate policy would make the nations favored fuels even costlier.

voted against the actual bill all due to their concerns over the price for consumers and business. Remember,
Lieberman estimated his bill only would have imposed $17 billion in costs on the fossil fuel industry in the first year.

Dealing with blatant

opponents is bad enough. But what about wavering climate action supporters? Jim
That key line in the Obama budget anticipates first-year climate revenue of $79 billion.

Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, the nations sixth-largest power producer, says he wants to see a climate
bill this year. But he has been quick to criticize the Obama approach, because he says a slower transition is needed
to protect consumers of the coal-dependent states in the Midwest and South. Duke and other members of the U.S.
Climate Action Partnership a coalition of businesses and some environmental groups favor the government
giving carbon pollution allowances for free to local electric distribution companies like Duke in the early stages of
the program. Rogers has been critical of the Obama approach, which is expected to require polluters to pay for the
program through a government auction of all carbon dioxide emissions permits. Proponents of auctioning 100
percent of CO2 permits seek to avoid the pitfalls of the European system, which initially gave away many permits to
power producers at no cost, resulting in windfalls for those companies. The U.S. auction would provide revenue for
the federal government to fund programs to offset the increased energy costs to families, as well as to invest in
development of clean energy. Yet another position is being staked out by the Edison Electric Institute a power
industry group to which Duke also belongs which argues that free allowances also should go to the so-called
merchant generators of power, companies that sprung up due to state deregulation and are now responsible for
nearly a third of the power consumed in the United States. The merchants dont serve local populations as oldstyle utilities do but sell their power to the highest bidder in the wholesale market. Local utilities would be
required by state regulators to pass the value of free allowances to their ratepayers, but unregulated merchant

If it sounds like the power business is

divided among itself, thats because it is. Thats part of the reason that U.S. CAP
never could reach agreement on whether to support Warner-Lieberman bill last year.
generators could keep any financial windfall for themselves.

Meanwhile, U.S. CAPs $870,000 in spending on climate lobbying last year paled next to the $9.95 million spent by
the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a group of 48 coal mining, hauling and burning
companies. (Duke, incidentally, is one of several companies that are members of both ACCCE and U.S. CAP. Its hard
to tell the players in the game, even with a scorecard.) ACCCE will undoubtedly be a major player in the battle to
pass climate legislation, and the group advocates a cautious approach that some cap-and-trade advocates say
would delay serious climate legislation for years. While the group claims to support a federal program to curb CO2
emissions, ACCCE opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill and says it will only back legislation that encourages a
robust utilization of coal. Since there's no technology available today that scrubs the carbon out of emissions from
coal-fired power plants, what ACCCE is really seeking is a go-slow approach from Congress while the government
invests in developing that technology. Warner-Lieberman, in ACCCE's view, went too far, too fast.

On the other

end of the spectrum is the fast-growing renewable energy sector , which is fully devoted to
adding the price of carbon pollution to every kilowatt generated from cheap coal competitors. Yet , put
renewable energy interests together with the environmental groups both lobbies have
mushroomed in the past five years and they are still outnumbered 8 to 1 by all other
interests lobbying on climate.

Big oils power overwhelms opponents

Froomkin 11 [Dan, writer for the Huffington Post, How The Oil Lobby Greases
Washington's Wheels, 4/6/11, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/06/how-theoil-lobby-greases_n_845720.html]
Clout in Washington isn't about winning legislative battles -- it's about making sure
that they never happen at all. The oil and gas industry has that kind of clout. Despite
astronomical profits during what have been lean years for most everyone else , the oil and gas industry
continues to benefit from massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion
polling shows the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated. Meanwhile, both parties are

when President Obama called on Congress to

eliminate about $4 billion a year in tax breaks for Big Oil earlier this year, the response on
the Hill was little more than a knowing chuckle. Even Obama's closest congressional
allies don't think the presidents proposal has a shot. "I would be surprised if it got a great deal
hunting feverishly for ways to reduce the deficit. But

of traction," Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate energy committee, told reporters at the
National Press Club a few days after Obama first announced his plan. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), co-author of a
House bill that closely resembles Obama's proposal, nevertheless acknowledges that it has slim chances of passing.
"It will be a challenge to get anything through the House that includes any tax increase for anyone under any
circumstance," he told The Huffington Post. The list goes on: "It's not on my radar," said Frank Maisano, a
spokesman for Bracewell Giuliani, a lobbying firm with several oil and gas industry clients. "It's old news and it's

the oil and gas

industry's stranglehold on Congres is so firm that even when the Democrats
controlled both houses, repeal of the subsidies didn't stand a chance . Obama proposed
never going to happen in this Congress. It couldn't even happen in the last Congress." Indeed,

cutting them in his previous two budgets as well, but the Senate -- where Republicans and consistently pro-oil
Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu had more than enough votes to block any legislation -- never even took a stab at
it.

AT: PC Not Real

PC is real- presidents are able to get things done with armtwisting, brow-beating, and horse-trading
Beckmann and Kumar, 2011- *Professor of Political Science at UC Irvine and
author of multiple books on how presidents push their agenda through, AND
**Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (*Matthew N. AND
**Vimal, January 2011, How presidents push, when presidents win: A model of
positive presidential power in US lawmaking, Published in the Journal of Theoretical
Politics, Volume 23 Number 1, Accessed in Sage Journals)
In light of this self- and public perception of contemporary presidents as Legislator-in- Chief, political scientists
have long sought to assess the empirical reality of presidents potential influence in Congress. Although earlier
generations of scholars largely concurred with Woodrow Wilsons proclamation that The President is at liberty, both
in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can, subsequent research has rebutted such great man

presidents may see some

opportunities for exerting influence on Capitol Hill, but as yet none has specified either
the opportunities or the systematic means by which presidents can exploit them. This was
conceptions of presidential power in lawmaking. More recent takes suggest

what our paper sought to offer. Agreeing that presidents strategic options in Congress do indeed depend heavily on

our models first insight is explicating the two systematic

strategies presidents have available for exerting influence in Congress: they can
target marginal voters to shift the preference distribution on roll-call votes and they
can target congressional leaders to censor the policy alternatives making it that far.
factors beyond their control,

While the first of these is widely recognized and studied, the second is not. By detailing the actual mechanisms of
president-led coalition building on Capitol Hill, ours is a theory that puts positive presidential power on a firmer

legislative opportunities are predictable (if not controllable) and

capitalizing on them depends on nothing more heroic than the normal
grist of legislative politics: arm-twisting, brow-beating, and horse-trading.
In this way, we subscribe to President Eisenhowers observation: Ill tell you what
leadership is: its persuasion, and conciliation, and education, and patience. Its
long, slow, tough work (Hughes, 1963: 124). However, if spending political capital in the service of voteconceptual footing;

centered and agenda-centered strategies is a necessary condition for presidents to have positive influence in
Congress, it certainly is not a sufficient condition. Instead, we find the exact policy return on a particular
presidential lobbying campaign is conditioned by the location of the status quo, and the nature of leading
opponents and pivotal voters preferences. Beyond enjoying ample political capital, then, those presidents who
seek to change far-off status quos and confront pliable leading opponents and/or pivotal voters are expected to

presidents with little to no political capital,

seeking to change centrist status quos, or confronting opposing leaders and pivotal
voters who staunchly oppose their proposals can find themselves with nothing to
do but stand there and take it, as Lyndon Johnson once put it. Going forward, then, this
wield the greatest policymaking impact. By comparison,

more nuanced conception of presidential power suggests presidential leadership in lawmaking works through
mechanisms different from those recognized previously and is manifested in ways different from those tested
previously. In fact, our theoretical results set forth specific guidelines for properly testing presidents legislative
influence. To conclude, let us briefly delineate these empirical implications of our theoretical model. The first and

the White House does not treat all presidential

positions equally: most receive nothing more than a mere comment, a precious few get the White
Houses full court press, and such prioritizing matters . Specifically, our basic hypothesis holds
that presidents positive influence depends heavily on lobbying to work. The
corollary, therefore, is that the crucial test of presidents influence is not whether skilled
presidents fare better than their unskilled counterparts, but rather whether
perhaps most important prescription is that

Congress responds differently to bills depending on the presidents lobbying, all else
being equal.

PCs real, observable, and quantifiable---interconvertibility

theory and a bunch of other scholarly work proves
Kimberly L. Casey 8, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at
William Jewel College, 2008, Defining Political Capital: A Reconsideration of
Bourdieus Interconvertibility Theory, http://lilt.ilstu.edu/critique/spring
%202008/casey.pdf
Political
capital is ill-defined, little understood, yet an important concept for understanding
political exchange and relationships in the political arena. I establish a definition based upon
Pierre Bourdieus interconvertibility theory, which indicates that capital types, such as
economic, social, and symbolic forms, interact and can be exchanged for one
another. Since the material and non-material components of capital variations are transposable, it can be argued
that no capital form is essentially pureevery type of capital contains elements of other varieties. Political
capital, therefore, is an amalgamation of capital types combined in various ways for
specific political markets. It is market demand that shapes capital formation. Capital
elements from other capital types inherent in the candidacy market are identified as an example. An index for
measuring this variant of political capital is created , demonstrating its conceptual
viability. Introduction: After the 2004 U.S. presidential election, George W. Bush publicized his intent to
utilize political capital for future projects garnered as a result of his victory. But what exactly is
political capital? However much the term is bandied about by politicians or the press, political capital has
no established definition in political science literature. Although it remains illdefined and unmeasured, it is an important concept for understanding political exchange
and relationships in the political arena despite the reservations some political scientists have
expressed about its applicability because of its complex material and nonmaterial
associations. An analysis of sociologist Pierre Bourdieus interconvertibility theory allows for conceptualization
Abstract: This article examines the concept political capital (PC) and its context in American politics.

of material and non-material of interactions among capital forms making it possible to define political capital and
design an index to measure it based upon previous capital literature. To develop an empirical basis for political
capital, this article first examines the associations it connotes in the popular press today. In contrast, a definition of

a
theory of political capital functions and markets are suggested. Theorizing leads to proposals
for objective means of identification and measurement . To illustrate the market association
political capital based upon capitalization literature and Bourdieus interconvertibility theory is presented. Then,

between capital and politics, an index associated with the resources associated with the candidacy market is
offered. The paper concludes with directions that studying the concept of political capital may take towards theorybuilding and framework creation. Defining Political Capital It is erroneous to refer a body of PC literature when
seeking a definition. Most writers and concerned actors who invoke the term political capital assume that its
meaning is understood. It is inferred to be an entity which political actors possess, build up and spend. 1 However,

a definition of political capital is typically never stated the reader or observer is left to
determine their own definition based upon the politicians or journalists usage of the term (Suellentrop 2004;

subjectivity is not reflective of

what political capital conceptually means in and to the political arena. Without a sound
definition that accurately portrays the elements of political capital as it works within a political
marketplaces, such as the electoral arena, and among office holders (executive, legislative, and
Kennicott 2004; A Year of Setbacks 2005; and Froomkin 2004). The

judicial), bureaucracy, and in society in general, the concept is meaningless. Defining and utilizing PC as a viable
political variable can evolve from the proliferation of capital theories in various fields of study. Political capital can
and should be associated with a wide variety of previous capital interpretations. The key to explicating political
capital is within capital literatures and how they address materialism, non-materialism, and combining the two
elements.2 The theory of capital is traditionally associated with economics. There is no clear consensus in defining

capital as an ideological function applicable beyond material exchange as expounded in economic capital theory,
however. Yet nonmaterial forms of capital are well established in scholarly literature . Most
of the capital type definitions hover around the meaning and terminology of economic capital. Certain theorists
believe that all capital forms, regardless of their composition or purpose, connect in some way with economic
capital. 3 Pierre Bourdieus work is invaluable in understanding capital as conceptually distinguishable from its
individual aberrations as a material phenomenon. Bourdieu extends the ideas and metaphor of economic interest
(material or physical pursuits) to include non-economic goods and services (symbolic or nonmaterial pursuits).
Within this conceptualization, Bourdieu constructs a science of practices that analyzed all human functions as
oriented towards the maximization of material or symbolic profit. 4 His theory of capital has limitations, however.
He relies on ideal types and lacks the empirical research needed to support much theory. It is impossible to refer to
capital-types and not acknowledge Bourdieus contributions to multiple capital species (Bourdieu1986; Kane 2001;
Putnam 2001; Becker 1993); Fitz-Enz 2000; Davenport 1999; Marr 2005).

The fact that political capital is intangible doesnt mean its a

lie---Presidents have variable and measurable effectiveness at
bargaining and pushing their agenda with Congress---its
useful to think of that influence in terms of PC
Ryan J. Barilleaux 12, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science
at Miami University of Ohio, 2012, Tough Times for the President: Political Adversity
and the Sources of Executive Power, Google Books (ebook edition so no page
numbers)
political resources of the president are more variable than constitutional and
institutional ones. These resources correspond to what is usually termed "political capital"
their presence or absence can be important factors in influencing the dynamics of a
political situation. These resources include the president's electoral margin, support in
Congress, public support and approval, and interest groups (which can assist the president in promoting
The

administration goals). Beyond these resources, presidents are also able to draw on two other intangible factors that
can and have been significant at many points in the history of the office: deference and crisis. The president is the
beneficiary of deference, usually in foreign policy. Half a century ago, Aaron Wildavsky noted in "The Two
Presidencies" that presidents are more likely to get their way from Congress in foreign affairs than in domestic
policy,10 and that deference continues to apply and appeared throughout our case studies. Even in the midst of
tough times, Congress tended to defer to the chief executive on international issues, even controversial wars. Of
course, this deference was not absoluteas several presidents also foundbut it was a significant resource for the
president. This deference also enhances presidential influence in times of national crisis, when the ordinary pulling
and hauling of politics gives way to consensus and rallying around the nation's leader. This has been the situation in
Cold War crises, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and in the 2008 financial crisis. Presidential Power
Resources: Personal Skills Presidents are also politicians and possess a variety of personal skills.
These skills are the sorts that Neustadt focused on in his description of presidential power and include the chief

bargaining and negotiation skills, and ability to communicate through the

media and relations with journalists. Personal resources include even the president's reputation both
professional and publicwhich can affect the likelihood of others to cooperate with the chief
executive's rhetorical skills,

executive. Some presidents, such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, possessed an ability to connect with the public
that helped each man survive a crisis that could have destroyed his presidency (Iran-Contra for Reagan, the
Lewinsky scandal for Clinton); other presidents do not have such a rapport with the public and, like Jimmy Carter
and George H. W. Bush, suffer for it. Finally, the president often has the ability to control timing and surprise to
influence events; for example, Nixon used both to manage the diplomatic opening to China in 1972, thus
contributing to his success in that endeavor. Of course, presidents do not possess all of these personal resources in
equal amount. Also, these personal resources are not uniform even in the same person. Even gifted politicians can
find their personal skills failing them in certain circumstances (as happened to LBJ in the matter of Vietnam),
whereas those who seem politically unskilled in one domain can be successful in another (as happened with Jimmy

Presidents must decide

when and how to apply their power resources to gain leverage in specific contexts , and
those decisions are made by weighing the risks, obstacles, and opportunities of
action or inaction. Lyndon Johnson famously commented in frustration about his office, "Power? The only power
Carter and the Camp David Accords). Weighing Risks, Obstacles, and Opportunities

I've got is nuclearand I can't use that."11 Whereas the legalistic approach to presidential powers tended to view
the veto, pardons, and treaty power in isolation from the political circumstances in which they are exercised,
presidents must employ their power resources in the real world of politics. That was the insight of LBJ's remark: the
president's leverage is a matter of leverage in context. The first contextual factor that a president must weigh are
the risks of the situation: the risk of inaction, the risk of failure, the risk of a court challenge (especially in cases of

Weighing these
risks is an eminently political decision, and consciousness of them has led chief
executives to proceed with caution (e.g., Lincoln and the timing of the Emancipation Proclamation,
Kennedy and civil rights legislation) or with boldness (e.g., Nixon's opening to China, Reagan's firing of
venture constitutionalism) or other negative reaction, the risk of bad timing, and other risks.

striking air traffic controllers, or Clinton's willingness to shut down the government). A second contextual factor that

presidents must weigh is the obstacles that stand in their way . These include opposition to
the president's goals: who opposes them, how numerous and how powerful the
opposition is, what resources the opposition possesses, and other considerations. Other obstacles include
constitutional and legal barriers to the president's plan and goals, bureaucratic resistance, economic constraints,
and other obstacles imposed by the particular situation. For example, Barack Obama was able to overcome the
obstacles that stood in the way of the health care reform plan (although some remained after the bill's passage that
raised questions about its implementation), whereas Bill Clinton in 1994 was unable to overcome opposition to his
plan and George W. Bush in 2005 could not attract support for his call for Social Security reform.

Obstacles

also include the intensity of opposition to the president's goals , which can make the
president's job even more difficult: in the cases of Truman and MacArthur, Eisenhower and Orville Faubus in Little
Rock, or Kennedy confronting George Wallace at the University of Alabama in 1963, each chief executive had to
contend with a highly motivated adversary. This fact is a key reason why each of these presidents had to rely on
executive power (Neustadt's "command") in order to act as he believed the situation required. Third, specific
situations also present opportunities. These include opportunities to advance the president's policy goals (e.g.,
change environmental policy, support democracy abroad), promote their political goals (such as reelection), meet
their responsibilities (which often motivates forays into venture constitutionalism),12 or seize other opportunities.

obstacles, risks, and opportunities must be weighed in relation to one

another. These calculations may be simple and obvious or complex and subtle, depending on the situation.
Presidents must determine what power resources can be applied to advance their
goals and how these contextual factors will affect the likelihood of success . Conversely,
Of course,

a president may believe that the situation requires action, even if the risks are very high and the obstacles to
success are formidable (e.g., the Cuban Missile Crisis). In any situation,

the president's power

resources, weighed against the risks, obstacles, and opportunities presented by circumstances, are
applied as leverage toward advancing the president's goals . Obviously, the consequent
leverage will not be the same in all circumstances but will vary according to the situation.

Consensus of studies prove PC key

Anthony J. Madonna Assistant Professor University of Georgia, et al Richard L.
Vining Jr. Assistant Professor University of Georgia and James E. Monogan III
Assistant Professor University of Georgia 10-25-2012 Confirmation Wars and
Collateral Damage: Assessing the Impact of Supreme Court Nominations on
Presidential Success in the U.S. Senate
The selection of Supreme Court justices is just one of several key powers afforded to the modern presidency.

Presidents use a wide range of tactics to set policy, including their ability to
influence the legislative agenda and staff vacancies to key independent boards and lower level federal
courts. In terms of influencing the legislative agenda, modern presidents introduce legislation and
define policy alternatives (Covington, Wrighton and Kinney 1995; Eshbaugh-Soha 2005, 2010). The State
of the Union Address and other public speeches are important venues for this activity (Canes-Wrone
2001; Cohen 1995, 1997; Light 1999; Yates and Whitford 2005), but they are not the only means
through which presidents outline their legislative goals. Presidents also add items to the legislative
agenda intermittently in response to issues or events that they believe require attention. This may be

done either by sending messages to Congress or through presidential communication to legislators'

constituents. While not unconditional, presidents can use their time and resources to
secure the passage of key policy proposals (Edwards and Wood 1999; Light 1999; Neustadt
1955, 1960).

Ideology doesnt outweigh presidential success dictates

votes
Lebo 10 (Matthew J. Lebo, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science,
Stony Brook University, and Andrew O'Geen, PhD Candidate, Department of Political
Science, Stony Brook University, Journal of Politics, The Presidents Role in the
Partisan Congressional Arena forthcoming, google)
we use established theories of congressional parties to
model the presidents role as an actor within the constraints of the partisan
environment of Congress. We also find a role for the president's approval level, a variable of some
Keeping this centrality in mind,

controversy in the presidential success literature. Further, we are interested in both the causes and consequences

the presidents record as a key component of the

party politics that are so important to both the passage of legislation and the
electoral outcomes that follow. Specifically, theories of partisan politics in Congress
argue that cross-pressured legislators will side with their parties in order to
enhance the collective reputation of their party (Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2005), but no
empirical research has answered the question: "of what are collective reputations made?" We demonstrate that it
is the success of the president not parties in Congress that predicts rewards
and punishments to parties in Congress. This allows us to neatly fit the president into existing
of success. We develop a theory that views

theories of party competition in Congress while our analyses on presidential success enable us to fit existing
theories of party politics into the literature on the presidency.

AT: Winners Win

PC theory is true, especially for Obama Winners dont win
Pillar 3/15 (Paul, visiting professor at Georgetown University for security studies,
Obama, the Hesitant Realist, http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=75784)
One obvious explanation is that the United States is not a presidential dictatorship .

The most glaring

current limitation on Mr. Obamas ability to implement policies as prudent as he would like
them to be is control of Congress by a political opposition determined to oppose
virtually his every move. Even in the instances where he somehow is able to overcome that opposition,
such as with the survival (so far) of the agreement to limit Irans nuclear program , the President has to
expend much political capital and to offer compensation that goes directly against some of
what his realist perspective would say is an unwise way of handling allies in the region. The resistance comes
from more than just the reflexive obstructionists. The realist perspective Mr. Obama holds is contrary to a
conventional wisdom that is more widely and deeply held, across both parties, in the Washington foreign-policy
establishment. The President describes this conventional wisdom in his interviews with Goldberg as a playbook in
Washington that presidents are supposed to follow. The playbook prescribes responses to different events, and
these responses tend to be militarized responses. The effects of the playbook have been felt within Mr. Obamas
administration and among his own advisers, most noticeably in the influence that some advisers had in leading to
the intervention in Libya. Going beyond the establishment and to the general American public, most of that public
simply does not subscribe to the realist perspective. Most of the American public oversimplifies foreign policy
problems, has an exceptionalist faith in the American ability to solve the worlds problems, sticks to traditional
views of friends and foes, and does not delve into the intricacies of geopolitics. Most Americans also think much
more in terms of why we cant get certain sets of bastards than in terms of Hobbesian interpretations of social
order, and would quickly tune out any explanation that sounds like the latter. And most Americans are swayed more
by emotion-rousing rhetoric than by careful, cool-headed analysis. Given these attributes of the public mindset,

there always will be opposition politicians eager and able to exploit that mindset to
score political points and gain political office, and to frustrate the efforts of those who think
differently. That is a political reality that even the most diligent and cool-headed realist must contend with. Any
president, even in a second term, must constantly worry about how what he or she does on
any one issue will affect the presidents influence and ability to get things done on
other issues. This means compromises inevitably are made. It also means the
president must pick which battles to fight and which not to fight. In that respect a realist presidents
perspective in dealing with conflict in Washington must parallel the perspective applied to conflicts abroad. The
president does, of course, have the ability to use the prominence and prestige of the office to try to educate the
public and to change the public mindset. One is entitled to ask why, as we read the wisdom that President Obama
dispenses in his conversations with Goldberg, we havent been receiving more of a steady diet of such wisdom,
featuring as much candor and directness, in a series of presidential statements from Mr. Obamas first days in
office. Part of the answer lies with this particular presidents strengths and weaknesses and comfort levels; he
acknowledged to Goldberg that there are times when I have not been attentive enough to feelings and emotions

the answer concerns the

political necessity of doing the sail-trimming, compromising, and battle-picking to
cope with conflict in Washington. Also pertinent is that the persuasive potential of even a
and politics in communicating what were doing and how were doing it. Part of

communication-skilled president is less than sometimes assumed to be, and probably less today than it has been in
the past. Particularly given the reach and variety of modern mass media, todays president has a harder time
commanding attention than Theodore Roosevelt with his bully pulpit or Franklin Roosevelt with his fireside chats.

PC is finite legislative wins dont spillover

Todd Eberly 13 is coordinator of Public Policy Studies and assistant professor in
the Department of Political Science at St. Mary's College of Maryland. His email is
teeberly@smcm.edu. This article is excerpted from his book, co-authored with
Steven Schier, "American Government and Popular Discontent: Stability without
Success," to published later this year by Routledge Press., 1-21- 2013

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-01-21/news/bs-ed-political-capital20130121_1_political-system-party-support-public-opinion/2

Obama prepares to be sworn in for the second time as president of the United States, he faces the stark reality that little of
what he hopes to accomplish in a second term will likely come to pass. Mr. Obama occupies an
office that many assume to be all powerful, but like so many of his recent predecessors, the president knows better. He
faces a political capital problem and a power trap . In the post-1960s American political system, presidents
have found the exercise of effective leadership a difficult task. To lead well, a president needs
support or at least permission from federal courts and Congress; steady allegiance from public opinion and fellow partisans in the electorate; backing from powerful,
entrenched interest groups; and accordance with contemporary public opinion about the proper size and scope of government. This is a long list of requirements. If
presidents fail to satisfy these requirements, they face the prospect of inadequate political support or
political capital to back their power assertions . What was so crucial about the 1960s? We can trace so much of what defines
As Barack

contemporary politics to trends that emerged then. Americans' confidence in government began a precipitous decline as the tumult and tragedies of the 1960s gave way to the scandals
and economic uncertainties of the 1970s. Long-standing party coalitions began to fray as the New Deal coalition, which had elected Franklin Roosevelt to four terms and made
Democrats the indisputable majority party, faded into history. The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 marked the beginning of an unprecedented era of divided government. Finally, the

two parties began ideologically divergent journeys that resulted in intense polarization in Congress,
diminishing the possibility of bipartisan compromise. These changes, combined with the growing influence of money and interest
groups and the steady "thickening" of the federal bureaucracy, introduced significant challenges to presidential
leadership. Political capital can best be understood as a combination of the president's party support in Congress, public approval of his job performance, and the
president's electoral victory margin. The components of political capital are central to the fate of presidencies. It is difficult to claim warrants for leadership in an era when job approval,

In recent years, presidents' political

capital has shrunk while their power assertions have grown, making the president a volatile
congressional support and partisan affiliation provide less backing for a president than in times past.

player in the national political system. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush joined the small ranks of incumbents defeated while seeking a second term. Ronald Reagan was elected in
two landslides, yet his most successful year for domestic policy was his first year in office. Bill Clinton was twice elected by a comfortable margin, but with less than majority support,
and despite a strong economy during his second term, his greatest legislative successes came during his first year with the passage of a controversial but crucial budget bill, the Family
and Medical Leave Act, and the North American Free Trade Agreement. George W. Bush won election in 2000 having lost the popular vote, and though his impact on national security
policy after the Sept. 11 attacks was far reaching, his greatest domestic policy successes came during 2001. Ambitious plans for Social Security reform, following his narrow re-election in
2004, went nowhere. Faced with obstacles to successful leadership, recent presidents have come to rely more on their formal powers. The number of important executive orders has
increased significantly since the 1960s, as have the issuance of presidential signing statements. Both are used by presidents in an attempt to shape and direct policy on their terms.
Presidents have had to rely more on recess appointments as well, appointing individuals to important positions during a congressional recess (even a weekend recess) to avoid delays
and obstruction often encountered in the Senate. Such power assertions typically elicit close media scrutiny and often further erode political capital. Barack Obama's election in 2008
seemed to signal a change. Mr. Obama's popular vote majority was the largest for any president since 1988, and he was the first Democrat to clear the 50 percent mark since Lyndon
Johnson. The president initially enjoyed strong public approval and, with a Democratic Congress, was able to produce an impressive string of legislative accomplishments during his first
year and early into his second, capped by enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But with each legislative battle and success, his political capital waned. His
impressive successes with Congress in 2009 and 2010 were accompanied by a shift in the public mood against him, evident in the rise of the tea party movement, the collapse in his
approval rating, and the large GOP gains in the 2010 elections, which brought a return to divided government. By mid-2011, Mr. Obama's job approval had slipped well below its initial
levels, and Congress was proving increasingly intransigent. In the face of declining public support and rising congressional opposition, Mr. Obama, like his predecessors, looked to the
energetic use of executive power. In 2012, the president relied on executive discretion and legal ambiguity to allow homeowners to more easily refinance federally backed mortgages, to
help veterans find employment and to make it easier for college graduates to consolidate federal student loan debt. He issued several executive orders effecting change in the nation's
enforcement of existing immigration laws. He used an executive order to authorize the Department of Education to grant states waivers from the requirements of the No Child Left
Behind Act though the enacting legislation makes no accommodation for such waivers. Contrary to the outcry from partisan opponents, Mr. Obama's actions were hardly
unprecedented or imperial. Rather, they represented a rather typical power assertion from a contemporary president. Many looked to the 2012 election as a means to break present
trends. But Barack

Obama's narrow re-election victory, coupled with the re-election of a somewhat-diminished Republican majority House and
hardly signals a grand resurgence of his political capital. The president's recent issuance of

Democratic majority Senate,

multiple executive orders to deal with the issue of gun violence is further evidence of his power trap. Faced with the likelihood of legislative defeat in Congress, the president must rely
on claims of unilateral power. But such claims are not without limit or cost and will likely further erode his political capital. Only by solving the problem of political capital is a president

Presidents in recent years have been unable to prevent their political

capital from eroding. When it did, their power assertions often got them into further political trouble. Through leveraging public support, presidents have at
likely to avoid a power trap.

times been able to overcome contemporary leadership challenges by adopting as their own issues that the public already supports. Bill Clinton's centrist "triangulation" and George W.
Bush's careful issue selection early in his presidency allowed them to secure important policy changes in Mr. Clinton's case, welfare reform and budget balance, in Mr. Bush's tax cuts

short-term legislative strategies may win policy

success for a president but do not serve as an antidote to declining political capital over time, as the
difficult final years of both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies demonstrate. None of Barack Obama's recent predecessors solved the political capital
problem or avoided the power trap. It is the central political challenge confronted by modern presidents and
and education reform that at the time received popular approval. However,

one that will likely weigh heavily on the current president's mind today as he takes his second oath of office.

PC is finite need to pick and choose battles to preserve

capital
Sanghoee, 13 Sangay Sanghoee, Political Commentator, has worked at leading
investment banks as well as at a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He has an MBA
from Columbia Business School, Huffington Post, 4/10/13,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sanjay-sanghoee/compromise-reform-howoba_b_3055100.html
There is only one thing that President Obama can truly rely on, and that is to get attacked no matter what he does.
When he stands up for Democratic principles, he is criticized by the Republicans for betraying the nation's values.

It seems he
just cannot win. But he can, and whether his critics realize it or not, Obama is doing it right
now. To understand this, however, it is important to recognize what motivates this particular president. Some
When he tries to be bipartisan, he is criticized by the Democrats for being weak and a turncoat.

presidents are caretakers. In their view, the best leadership is to make sure that nothing goes terribly wrong and
that the ship remains stable. As long as they do that, they consider themselves successful. But that is not this

This president wants to accomplish something tangible, dramatic, and lasting, and
to institute reform. Reform in healthcare, reform in marriage equality, reform in immigration,
reform in education, reform in campaign finance, and reform in clean energy. In all these areas, Obama sees
the potential for dramatic change and lasting long-term effects, and that is why he is
willing to go to the mat on these issues. On other things, including Social Security and
Medicare, the budget deficit, and even gun control, he sees less room for dramatic
improvement - either because of circumstances or political reality - and so is more willing to
compromise. Is this good or bad? It is neither, really. It is just the nature of this presidency and perhaps
Obama's destiny. Leaders pick and choose their battles based on the nation's circumstances,
unexpected contingencies, and their own instincts. President Obama's instincts led him to fight for
healthcare, so he did - ferociously, and he will do the same for immigration,
education, and clean energy. He is being roundly criticized for proposing a budget that
agrees to cuts in Social Security by tying it to a Chained CPI, and for agreeing to a softer
gun control bill than the one his party promised after Newtown, in order to reach compromise with the
Republicans. But what I believe is really happening is that Obama is making some very
tough choices. Political capital is a finite resource and this president will
use it where he feels it will do the most good. We can disagree with him on his priorities,
president.
that is

but I also see where he is coming from. Preserving Social Security is important but so is getting a budget passed
and reaching some type of compromise to keep the government running. Gun control is urgent but so are

History will decide whether the benefits of Obama's reforms on

some fronts will outweigh the costs of his bipartisan compromises on others, but in
the meantime, the Democrats should remember that governing has always been about horsetrading, and that Obama has only a short time left to address the major facets
of his agenda. Obama is prepared to lose a few battles in order to win the
war. That is not being weak or a turncoat. It is being pragmatic and smart. It is also being
Presidential.
immigration and education.

AT: Trump removes sanctions

If Congress acts, Trump cant remove sanctions

Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Dec 31, 2016. http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russiasanctions-what-will-congress-do-18910

If Congress locks in new sanctions on Russia, declines to give the

President either the ability to waive them on national security
grounds or to determine when the conditions for lifting them has been met,
and requires that lifting sanctions will occur only on the basis of a new
Congressional vote, then it doesn't really matter what Donald Trump,
Rex Tillerson, Michael Flynn or anyone else thinks about the utility of
sanctions or even using the prospect of lifting them as a bargaining
chip in future dealings with the Kremlinbecause the power to do
so will not be in their hands but in that of Congress. The Trump
administration would then be fighting a two-front struggle: trying to negotiate
deals with Russia (say, on the future of Ukraine) while at the same time seeing
whether such bargains would be supported by Congress for sanctions to be
lifted or at least modified.

Russia Threat A2: Should Cooperate, not Contain,

Russia
Russian cooperation needs to be backed by military power

Barry R. Posen is the Director of the Security Studies Program at MIT,

November 29, 2016, How to think about Russia,
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-think-about-russia-18546
Finally, it is of great concern that Russian elites seem to fetishize the
only card they have to playmilitary power. To ensure that they
dont catch the victory disease from their heretofore minor military
successes, or misinterpret our cooperative efforts as evidence of
weakness, the United States and its friends should always have
some military power in reserve even where and when they are
trying to cooperate with Russia. Given Russias renewed military
strength, however, we must understand that our military power
can deter, but probably not compel.
Military strength critical to cooperative, respectful relations
Stephen Sestanovich is a Columbia University professor who was the State
Departments ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union during the Bill
Clinton administration, November 25, 2016, New York Times, The Two Putin Problem,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/sunday/the-two-putin-problem.html?
mtrref=www.cfr.org&assetType=opinion
BothPutinsaimtorestorerespectforRussiaasagreatpower.Yetneitherhasbeenabletodoso.Withotherleaders,Russiaspresidentsuffers
fromareputationfordishonestyanddoubledealing.Andallovertheworld,pollsshowgreaterpopularconfidenceinPresidentObamathanin

Trumpwillneedtoslowtheaggressive
momentumofthefirstPutinandplayontheanxietyofthesecond.Theremayberoominsucha
relationshipforstrongmantostrongmanshowsofrespect,butMr.Trumpmust
notkidhimself.ThekeytowinningMr.Putinsrespectandtoassuringhis
restraintistoleavenodoubtaboutAmericasmilitary,economicanddiplomaticpower.Itwill
Mr.Putin.InEurope,themarginisastaggeringfivetoone.Mr.

surelysurpriseMr.Trumptohearit,butthepoliciesheinheritsfromtheObamaadministrationprovidetheessentialingredientsforsucha
relationship.

Europeisthecriticalcase.RussianaggressionandconfrontationtherehavenotcrackedtransAtlanticunity.

WesternsupporthasheldUkrainetogetherandconfinedseparatiststotwosmallenclaves.SanctionshavedeepenedRussiaseconomic

AllNATOmembershavepledgedtoincreasemilitaryspending.Andthe
allianceplanstodeploysmallmilitaryunitstonewmembers,creatinganeeded
tripwireagainstRussianpressure.Onlybyunderstandingthisrecord,ratherthandisparagingit,
downturn.

canMr.TrumpachieveandprofitfromchummypersonalrelationswithhisRussian
counterpart.Letsimagine,forexample,thatthesecond,anxiousPutindecidedtoacceptanoutstretchedhandfromWashingtonas
coverforextricatinghimselffromthestalematehehascreatedineasternUkraine.Ifso,PresidentTrumpwouldhaveashotatrevivingthelong
blockedMinsk2agreement,whichobligesRussiatowithdrawwhileUkraineallowssomeformofautonomyfortheeasternseparatists.Mr.
Trumpshouldknowtherisksofthisrespectforretreatstrategy.OnceMr.PutindecideshewantsoutofeasternUkraine,hellfindawaytogo
aheadwiththeMinsk2deal.Buthewontevenconsiderbacktrackingifhethinkshecangetwhathewantsfornothing.Thatswhythenew
presidentmustinsistonarealsolutioninUkraine,notacosmeticone.GivingRussiarelieffromsanctionswithoutacompletewithdrawalwould
onlymakeMr.Trumplooklikeachump.HewouldhavefailedtocheckthefirstPutin,andletthesecondoneoffthehook.RussianAmerican
relationswouldfacenewchallenges.Theywouldbecomelessstable,notmore.IfMr.TrumpplaysthetwoPutinsright,hehasachancetomove
forwardonotherissues.Russianofficialshaveexpressedlittleinterestinnewarmscontroltalks.ButthatwasbeforeRussianmilitaryspending

Havingpromisedhisownbuildup,Mr.Trumpisinapositiontore
engageMr.Putinonthebroadissueofstrategicnuclearstability .(Doingsowillhavewillhave
cameunderpressure.

thefurtherbenefitofmakingiteasierforEuropeangovernmentstomaintainUkrainerelatedsanctions.)

Poor relations are not due to US policy but due to Russian

economic decline
Kathryn Stoner, 11-22-16, The Atlantic, Cooperation With Russia is Possible,
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/11/trump-putin-russiaelection-nato/508496/

But the relationship clearly broke down upon Putins return to

the Russian presidency in 2012. What changed was not U.S.
policy (NATO expansion had ended in 2009; how could it justify the
invasion of Crimea in Ukraine in 2014?), as much as it was Russian
economic and political conditions. With the decline in global
energy prices, Russia was no longer prosperous nor politically
stable. It may be that Putin saw the risk to his own legacy, as Russia
struggled through the aftermath of the global economic crisis. And so in
the fall of 2011, he announced his return to the presidency. As Russias
economic crisis deepened, Putin fused his own desire to
retain the presidency with his countrys very survival as a
nation-state. An internal legitimating narrativethat Russia
was under siege from a hedonistic, overly militarized West
took hold. As a result, Russia under Putin is increasingly
authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad. But past
cooperation between Russia and the United States
demonstrates that this is not structural as much as it is a
result of the personalization of politics under Putin. He has
eviscerated the political opposition, and hollowed out institutions like
the Russian parliament and the courts that might check his grip on the
system he has built. The recent arrest of Alexei Ulyukaev, Russias
minister of economic development, on what appear to be politically

motivated corruption charges, could signal a further purging of a more

liberal wing within Putins administration, and a
further consolidation of his personal power.
Any boost in relations under Trump will be short-term,
relations will decline
Ivan Krastev & Stephen Holmes, November 21, 2016, Foreign Policy, Get Ready for
the Most Violent Detent Ever, http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/21/get-ready-for-themost-violent-detente-ever/

Russias economic difficulties mean that Putin, to achieve relief from Western
sanctions, may enter into a momentary Berlusconi-style bromance with the new
U.S. president. But the honeymoon is unlikely to last because Russias economic
difficulties oblige its government to hunt for enemies, foreign and domestic. Its
likely that Trump will also soon be looking to magnify the role of domestic and
foreign enemies to fend off domestic criticism and explain his inevitable failures.
Past relations resets have failed, must understand Russia as a
threat
Max Boot is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations, USA Today, November 18, 2016, Note to Trump: Putin is Not Our Friend: Max
Boot, http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/18/trump-putin-russia-nato-security-maxboot/94026988/
The only real questions at this point are how far Trump will go in a pro-Russia direction and
how long this rapprochement will last. He is hardly the first American president to come
into office vowing to improve relations with Putin. George W. Bush claimed to
have looked into Putins eyes and seen his soul. Barack Obama pursued a reset of
relations. Both initiatives floundered when Putin launched unprovoked aggression
such as his 2008 invasion of Georgia and his 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Its quite
possible, even likely, that the good feelings between Putin and Trump will similarly give way
to mutual recriminations and suspicions after Putin does something that Trump views as a
personal insult. There will certainly be prominent Republican voices inside and outside the
administration arguing for a tougher policy on Russia. Vice President Mike Pence is a
hardliner and so are most of the people John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and now Mitt
Romney who are being mentioned for senior national security posts. Just this week, Sen.
John McCain warned Trump not to place any faith in statements made by a former KGB
agent who has plunged his country into tyranny. Trump is too mercurial a figure to
pursue any policy with any consistency, even a pro-Russia policy. We can only hope

that Russia does not succeed in reestablishing its empire and swallowing some of
Americas more vulnerable allies in Eastern Europebefore Trump wakes up to the fact
that Putin is not Americas friend.

Risk of nuclear war between the US and Russia is increasing

Roll Call, December 13, 2016, Nuclear threats rise in concert with Trumps
ascension, http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/nuclear-threats-rise-concert-trumpsascension
Since the Cold War ended 25 years ago, Americans havent thought much about nuclear war.
That changed slightly in the recently concluded presidential campaign, but it needs to change
dramatically, many experts say.
Unbeknownst to most voters, a growing cadre of security analysts says the risk that nuclear
weapons might be used by nations or terrorist groups is increasing, and it may even be higher
than it was in the Cold War, due mostly to a spiral of Russian provocations and Western
responses.
Many of these critics have dusted off decades-old proposals for lessening the risk that
Americas nuclear weapons could be used rashly or inadvertently, due to system error, false
warning or U.S. sensors or computers compromised by enemy action. For one thing, they say, it
is past time to end the requirement that nuclear missiles must be ready to launch within
minutes. And, they say, a planned $1 trillion overhaul of Americas nuclear arsenal is excessive.
But the critics are in the minority in Congress, and the odds appear slim that their calls will be
heeded. Besides, rising tensions, especially between the United States and Russia, make it
harder for leaders to unilaterally take actions that could increase stability, for fear they might
be perceived as weak. Bilateral or multilateral agreements are possible but hard to complete.
Donald Trumps election brings critics nuclear fears to a boil. Hillary Clinton sought
unsuccessfully to convince voters to keep Trump from the Oval Office in part to keep his volatile
temperament away from the nuclear-launch codes. Now that Trump is about to take the helm,
those worries will swell not just among the experts but probably in the populace at large.
Trump appears open to a cozier relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it
remains to be seen whether his approach will do anything to lessen the risks of conflict with a
Russia that is dead set on using its military with growing brashness to defend its interests.
[Kaine, Other Senators Take Sides in Clash Over Nuclear Arms]
Even if a nuclear mistake is unlikely to happen in any given year, over decades the odds grow
for it to happen at least once, the critics argue. Whats more, they argue, even if the chances are
low, the harm is intolerably high, so if the risk can be reduced without diminishing deterrence
by taking certain steps, why not take them?

One false alarm in a century is one too many, because the consequences could be
catastrophic, could be civilization-ending, says Bruce Blair, a former U.S. intercontinental
missile launch control officer who is now a researcher at Princeton University.
The risks of nuclear war are rising mostly, but not only, because Putin has deployed his
countrys military, including its nuclear forces, with increasing aggression. America and its allies
are responding. And so the cycle continues.
Russias pattern of muscle-flexing is visible across the globe from its proxy invasion of
Ukraine to its buildup of forces in Syria. Russian aircraft and ships are buzzing U.S. and NATO
counterparts virtually every day somewhere around the world, U.S. officials say. The Russians
recently moved nuclear-capable missiles near Poland and Lithuania. They have repeatedly
conducted exercises involving nuclear forces, and America has too. They have broken the 1987
treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces by developing a new nuclear ground-launched
cruise missile. They tauntingly sailed an aircraft carrier battle group through the English
Channel last month. Russian media reported the nation conducts civil defense drills each
October, the most recent of which was said to involve 40 million people.
Both Russia and the United States are engaging in cyber-espionage and sometimes
cyberattacks, some of which could trigger physical outcomes such as electrical outages
that in turn could be considered an act of war, some experts worry.
Russian military doctrine has blurred the line between conventional and nuclear war. It calls for
using nuclear weapons as a means to essentially frighten an adversary into backing down from
a conventional fight.
- See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/nuclear-threats-rise-concert-trumpsascension#sthash.HfjK7HKo.n0UTLdjJ.dpuf
The odds of war with Russia are rising, says Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army four-star
general and a former deputy commander of NATO forces. We must assume, given the way
Russia integrates nuclear into every aspect of military doctrine, that this must include the risk of
nuclear war.
It is not hard to imagine U.S. and Russian aircraft clashing, if only by accident, in the crowded
skies over Syria if not in the Baltics, the Arctic, the North Sea, the Aleutians or elsewhere.
Moscows rhetoric, too, has waxed radioactive. Dimitry Kiselev, a Putin progagandist, recently
warned of nuclear consequences in response to impudent behavior.
All this may be Russia blustering and posturing in ways it sees as serving its interests. But it has
already led to a pattern of escalation between nuclear Russia and nuclear America. For
example, Russian actions in Ukraine were a response to NATO expansion, and those actions led
the U.S. to reassure allies by deploying to the Black Sea warships with Tomahawk missiles that
could put Russian command-and-control, air-defense and early-warning facilities at risk, says
Princetons Blair.
Moscow in turn deployed attack submarines to the Black Sea to shadow U.S. ships, he says.
Then American forces replied by sending P-8 sub-hunting planes.

The current confrontation is steadily escalating, with definite nuclear implications, Blair says.
It could too easily spiral out of control and culminate in a full-throttle nuclear confrontation.