“Obama has the authority to make executive agreements with other nations without Congress. This is not a treaty and that Congress passed a bill allowing them to review the agreement was some improvement.”
This may be true. But what I want to know is can the next POTUS undo this? For instance, the likely scenario (I would almost bet my life it will play out this way) is the majority of the House and Senate vote against this deal and come just one or two votes shy of the two thirds needed to override a presidential veto. If that be the case, could the next Congress revisit the agreement and vote to rescind it with a simple majority and presidential signature?
If that is not the case, then this bill was not really an improvement. It would have been better for the Senate to simply declare it a treaty and vote it up or down (with the two-thirds threshold). This would give the next POTUS a lot more political cover to rescind the deal.
Yes.
So the president can make new treaties just by saying they are not treaties? How cool is that? Sort of like a tax isn't a tax unless we need it to be a tax.