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Chamber of Commerce CEO says he pushed US accession to Law of the Sea Treaty
Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — and no friend of the Obama administration — said Thursday that he helped instigate the latest push to get the United States to accede to the United Nations's Law of the Sea Treaty.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) repeatedly drew attention to Donohue's support in a bid to deflect conservative attacks during his panel's fourth hearing on the treaty. Some critics have alleged that Kerry is pushing the treaty to ingratiate himself with the White House in order to gain the secretary of State job if President Obama is reelected.
“Everybody's kind of got it wrong so far,” Kerry said. “I was actually out to dinner with Tom Donohue, maybe a year and a half ago ... and at the very end of the dinner Tom turned to me and said, 'when are you going to get this Law of the Sea Treaty done?' And I was completely taken aback.”
“I have talked to a lot of people about it," he said. "And as the senator said, we were together one evening and he did all of his business and I said, 'not until I do some of my business. And I raised that issue and he got very interested in it. But by the way, there are a lot of other people who have been interested in it for a long time.”
Donohue was one of four business leaders who testified in favor of the treaty on Thursday. He specifically rejected criticism that joining the treaty would harm U.S. sovereignty.
“This treaty promotes our sovereignty, by codifying our property rights in the Arctic and on our extended continental shelf,” he said. “It will be ours, people will know it's ours, and we'll have every right to defend it.”
As for the royalties that U.S. oil-and-gas companies would have to pay for redistribution by a U.N. body, he said, “my response to that is simple: The U.S. Treasury will lose hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in royalty revenue by not providing companies the legal certainty and stability to develop the extended continental shelf.”
Donohue testified along with leaders from the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers and Verizon. Their testimony might have had a greater impact on undecided Republicans than previous appearances by U.S. military leaders, who have to answer to the civilian leadership.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) appeared to acknowledge as much when he questioned Jack Gerard, the president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
“It's a bit of an out-of-body experience to hear you testify about the administration doing something to help the oil industry,” Corker said.
“The irony wasn't lost of me either when I was invited to testify,” said Gerard, who has clashed repeatedly with the Obama administration on off-shore drilling, the Keystone pipeline and other issues.
“I'm very neutral on this,” Corker concluded. “I'm here to learn.”
