Clinton says she would embrace climate, arms treaties
Lays out vision to revitalize US leadership
WASHINGTON - Senator Hillary Clinton pledged yesterday that as secretary of state she would revitalize US leadership by embracing a host of treaties on arms control and climate change that the Bush administration has been reluctant to endorse.
In five hours of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, she said she would revive attempts to ratify or renegotiate several international accords, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons testing; the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which stops the production of fuel for nuclear weapons; and the START agreement between the United States and Russia, which expires in December. The treaty reduces stockpiles of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
In addition, Clinton said during her confirmation hearing that President-elect Barack Obama would appoint a negotiator to international efforts to halt global climate change.
"The best way to advance America's interests in reducing global threats and seizing global opportunities is to design and implement global solutions," Clinton said in her opening remarks. "That isn't a philosophical point. This is our reality."
Her statements marked a drastic departure from the Bush administration's broad skepticism toward treaties, and were greeted enthusiastically by Democrats and many Republicans on the committee, as well as by specialists on arms control and the environment.
"The Obama administration recognizes that to deal with international challenges like nuclear proliferation and nuclear weapons, we need greater cooperation," said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based nonproliferation think tank. "If we are going to improve the global system, the United States is going to have to lead by example, and these three initiatives have been something that other countries expect the United states to take action on."
However, some conservatives have already begun to campaign against the treaties, which need a two-thirds majority in the Senate to pass, saying that they bring the United States closer to world government and unwisely tie US hands.
"More senators should be educated about the sovereignty implications of these treaties," said Steven Groves of the conservative Heritage Foundation, although he acknowledged that "it could still be a tough fight to block them."
Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry, who made his debut yesterday as chair of the committee - a position recently relinquished by Vice President-elect Joe Biden - warmly welcomed Clinton's pledges to take climate change seriously and made his own impassioned plea for US participation in international efforts.
"Many today do not see climate change as a national security threat, but it is," Kerry said in his opening remarks.
Throughout the hearing, Clinton commented with confidence on a wide range of foreign policy questions - from meat-and-potatoes issues, like Iraq, to arcane topics, like the need to map the continental shelf.
On Iran, Clinton declined to say whether she would soon meet with Iranian officials, but said the new administration would use both sanctions and diplomacy to dissuade Tehran from continuing uranium enrichment.
"We are not taking any option off the table at all, but we will pursue a new, perhaps different approach that will become a cornerstone of what the Obama administration believes is an attitude toward engagement that might bear fruit," she said.
On the Israel-Palestinian crisis, she pledged stepped-up US engagement in building the capacity of a Palestinian government, saying "We cannot give up on peace."
Still, the issue of foreign donations to a foundation run by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, came up several times in the hearing as members implored her to take additional measures to ensure there was no appearance of a conflict of interest.
"The bottom line is that even well-intentioned foreign donations carry risk for US foreign policy," Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican from Indiana, told her, adding that the foundation was a "temptation" for foreign governments who might see it as a way to curry favor.
Lugar applauded both Clinton's credentials and her foreign policy vision, and pledged to support her nomination, but called on the Clintons to either decline new foreign donations or at the very least make them public as soon as possible. Senator Clinton has agreed to allow vetting of donations to the foundation by foreign governments - not individuals - through the State Department ethics office and to make all donations public once a year.
Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, and Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, also urged her to ask her husband to curtail acceptance of foreign donations. Corker said that the Clinton Foundation, which operates a number of global anti-poverty and HIV efforts, is a "speck" compared with the "huge magnitude of efforts" that Clinton herself can now enact on behalf of the US government.
Clinton made no promises to amend the agreement that she struck with the committee, saying that she is already going beyond what ethics rules requires, and that the foundation pays for lifesaving drugs for 1.4 million people in the developing world.
"My husband doesn't take a salary. He has no financial interest in any of this," she said, expressing pride in the foundation's work. "I don't take a salary. I don't have any financial interest."
The Associated Press reported yesterday that Senator Clinton intervened at least six times on issues affecting companies or individuals that later contributed to her husband's foundation. For example, the AP said she had written to the Federal Communications Commission in 2004, expressing concern that changes to competitive local exchange carrier access rates could hurt carriers such as New York-based PAETEC Communications. PAETEC's chief executive is Arunas Chesonis, whose family and charity later contributed to the Clinton Foundation, the report said. 