"The Obama administration is in talks with the Senate to craft a plan to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a top State Department official said yesterday.

'President Obama is strongly in favor of the United States becoming a party to the Law of the Sea Convention,' said Margaret Hayes, director of the State Department's Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs. 'We have been in touch with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There is discussion going on as to the exact timing of when they might have a hearing and when they might proceed to have the full Senate consider accession.'

Hayes said she hoped the Senate would consider the treaty this year, 'but I can't predict that it will.'"

Lauren Morello reports for ClimateWire in the New York Times July 29, 2009. [2]