The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.) on February 25, quietly and unanimously approved the extremely anti-American Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), long a goal of the United Nations. The treaty, flatly rejected by President Reagan, now goes to the full Senate, where it needs a two-thirds vote to be ratified. LOST would create a new international body and court that could totally wipe out U.S. deep-sea mining and oil drilling and tightly restrict U.S. ocean research and exploration. President Clinton tried to move the treaty forward, but with no success. Now a Republican-controlled Senate committee is taking up the cause.
