Abby L. Harvey
GHG Daily
1/15/2016
Presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) found himself painted as an environmentalist of all things this week, by conservative media organization Breitbart News. The organization Wednesday dug up a 2008 television interview featuring Rubio, then speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, stating that he was “in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap-and-trade or a carbon tax program and bring it back to the legislature for ratification sometime in the next two years.”
Rubio immediately took to the Internet to deny the claims, stating the interview video was edited by his 2010 Senate opponent, independent Charlie Crist. “The Crist campaign edited out the key part where Marco actually said he opposes big government mandates like cap-and-trade,” the Rubio campaign asserted.
According to the campaign a key line was cut out of the interview: “The way we’re [going to] clean up our environment, the way we’re [going to] lower carbon emissions, is not through government mandates. It’s through the American innovator. And that’s what anything we do should be based upon. Not big government mandates like they do in Europe and California.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who announced his endorsement of Rubio late last week, quickly jumped to the candidate’s aid, saying in a prepared statement that Rubio has always opposed cap-and-trade. "To suggest that Marco supported cap-and-trade in Florida is absurd. Not only did Marco block Charlie Crist’s radical environmental agenda, but he has stood with me every step of the way to stop President Obama’s job-killing energy policies, including cap-and-trade,” Inhofe said in the release.
Breitbart News reported that Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R-Texas), responded to the video saying, “Rubio’s record shows a questionable fidelity to some of the most important issues for conservatives.”
