President Bush startled conservatives in his own party in 2005 with his support for U.S. ratification of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). The Republican rank-and-file has adamantly opposed this effort to give the UN regulatory and taxing powers over all the world’s oceans and territorial seas since President Reagan torpedoed U.S. participation in the LOST scheme in the 1980s.

Besides granting unaccountable UN bureaucrats power over navigation, marine life, fisheries, and minerals, LOST would provide the UN with enormous revenues, potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have urged the Senate to ratify this UN convention. Secretary Rice will lead a delegation to Ilulissat, Greenland, for a conference on Arctic territorial claims on May 27-29. The five-nation conference, which is to include representatives from the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, and Norway, will hold discussions on territorial claims in the Arctic Ocean. The Greenland conference is expected to signal a new push in the Senate for ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.

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