http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306838,00.html

BRIT HUME: All right.

When we come back, President Bush supports the law of the sea treaty, but many other Republicans hate it. More with the all stars on this big thing in a moment.

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GORDON ENGLAND, DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY: Some people said this is a big U.S. land grab because there are so many rights that accrue to the United States because of our huge coastline. So it seemed this is hugely beneficial to the United States, rather than a disadvantage. It is a huge advantage to the U.S. in terms of our economic as well as our security interests.

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HUME: On behalf of the Bush administration, the Deputy Secretary of Defense is talking about the Law of the Sea Treaty, which has been around Washington for two decades or more and is finally coming to a vote on Wednesday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Now, what does the Law of the Sea Treaty purport to do? Here are a few things it purports to do—it is intended to govern the activities on, over, and beneath the ocean surface. It establishes a 12 mile territorial sea limit, and a 200 mile exclusive economic zone among.

And it also contains provisions regarding marine trade, pollution, research, deep sea mining, and disputed resolutions.

There are intense objections to it, to include the claim that it undermines U.S. sovereignty as disputes under it would be decided under international law, now U.S. law, that — that it would sharply limit U.S. military operations is a claim, and that it would inhibit the ability to pursue international terrorists and at the same time prevent the transportation of weapons of mass destruction on the sea.

That might not sound like a bad thing, but sometimes we transport weapons of mass destruction to our allies, who may, we think, need them.

So what about the Law of the Sea Treaty. Republican presidential candidates seem to be in a hurry to come out against it. Mara, what about this?

LIASSON: That tells you a lot right there. I think this is an issue, not unlike illegal immigration, where you have the Republican establishment—you have the president, you have the military, you have people like Senator Lugar—John McCain as a presidential candidate has actually been for this—but you do have the base of the Republican party feeling that this is a danger and a threat to American sovereignty, and they're against it.

HUME: It's more like the Panama Canal Treaty.

LIASSON: Yes. It is like one world government, and this is going to- -the U.N. will take over. And I think that is what the politics of this is. This is a very bad time to be bringing this up because the president does not have a whole lot of clout with his own party.

HUME: Where are the Democrats on this?

LIASSON: The Democrats like it. That is another reason the Republicans are against it, because the Democrats are for it. President Clinton, by the way, signed this and submitted it to the Senate, and it was never ratified.

BARNES: Republicans have one great thing going for them, though. You know who was against this treaty? Ronald Reagan when he was president. He was against it for a different reason—

HUME: It has been revised to some extent.

BARNES: It has been, OK, yes, but there are other concerns.

The simplest thing is do we want to allow important decisions at sea— what the U.S. Navy does, where it can go, whether the U.S. can capture and hold terrorists, who they might grab at sea, whether the U.S. has to inform other countries if they're going through a passage in their waterways—we want to leave things with some international tribunal connected with the U.N.?

International tribunals and the U.N., they are not real friendly to the U.S. So do want to turn over really important decisions involving national security and other things to a body like that? The answer is pretty easy to me. The answer is "no."

KRAUTHAMMER: Fred is right. Britannia ruled the waves, and now it's America. And we spend half a trillion dollars on defense, of which a lot is spent on the Navy that rules the seas. A blue water Navy, nobody else has it.

We go under customary international law, and we enforce it. That is because we are the largest naval power by huge margins. Which means if want to impose a blockade on Cuba, or intercept a ship from North Korea carrying stuff, we do it, and we explain how it is done under customary international law. And nobody adjudicates our actions.

Under this it ends up in a treaty—there is a committee appointed under the U.N. where we will have the same voice and vote as Chad and Bolivia, which are landlocked, and it makes no sense at all.

We are in a position to enforce established international law without second-guessing.

The reason Reagan objected was Section 11, which ruled that the seas, which for 1,000 years had been owned by no one are owned by the U.N. and a committee of the U.N.

HUME: Owned, or governed?

KRAUTHAMMER: Owned. It is owned by all mankind, and who speaks on behalf of all mankind?

HUME: The Parliament of Man.

KRAUTHAMMER: Exactly—a sand box of dictators, of which we would have one vote, again. And many of these people are not friendly to America's interest.

It's absurd. Why should a committee of the U.N. decide on how the mining of these seas is done and how it is allocated?

HUME: OK. Will it be ratified in your judgment?

KRAUTHAMMER: No.

LIASSON: It needs 67 votes, that's a pretty high hurdle.

BARNES: It won't get there thanks to Republican Senators.