In a Feb. 27 letter, the West Virginia Coal Association asked Mitt Romney:
What is your position on the Kyoto Protocol and the cap-and-trade legislation that failed in Congress? Will you pursue any laws, rules or policies to implement controls that will penalize the jobs of workers in the fossil fuel industries of this country? How would you address the Obama Administration’s backdoor efforts to regulate carbon without Congressional intent?
Romney responded:
I am strongly opposed to the President’s misguided attempts to regulate carbon in direct contravention of the will of Congress. Carbon dioxide is not a “pollutant” and I will seek an amendment to the Clean Air Act that makes this clear. Proposals like Kyoto, or the failed cap-and-trade legislation, would have no significant impact on worldwide carbon emissions but they would impose draconian constraints on our own economy. I believe the right course for our nation is to pursue policies that maintain our global lead in technological innovation, helping us to burn existing fuels more cleanly and will eventually diversifying the sources of energy that we can use economically.
If you believe CO2 is a pollutant, you have a moral obligation to stop breathing immediately.
Romney was against CO2 before he was for it. All the Democrats have to do for their ads is compare past policies that he instituted as Governor with present statements to the contrary.
Romney is like a weather vane. He will point whichever way the wind is blowing at the time. He sees a political advantage to wear some of the clothes of Ron Paul, and shamelessly exploits this to differentiate himself from Gingrich and Santorum. Yet Paul is being swindled in the Caucuses, and now fraud is admitted against him, even in mainstream press reports.
The sooner that the Republican Party ceases this chicanery, the sooner we can get on with a real selection process. The danger for the Republican Hierarchy is that if they don’t allow Paul to be fairly selected by rank and file Republicans, then they will lose the only potential Presidential candidate who shows consistantly in polls that he is the only one who is able to garner enough defecting Democrat votes so as to unseat Obama.
Why in one State, Paul even came in second place to Obama, before all alternative Democrat candidates, in the DEMOCRATIC caucus, as a write in candidate, such is the strength of rebel Democrat support for Ron Paul. The Republican Party is in danger of trashing its own winning hand, before the game has even really begun.
I’m with you. That was a moderate’s answer to an issue that has gotten so entrenched in the system, that moderation will do nothing; as witness to the hapless, ineffective efforts so far.
CO2 is PLANT FOOD !!
Yes, indeed!…. . and if only we could get the spineless Stupid Party in charge of OVERSIGHT of that behemoth to actually slap Jackson, and all the rest of those maniacs down; better yet just DEFUND the whole GD thing!!
Sorry but I do not see anything else but politics in this reply. And, of course, the fact that Mitt Romney is going to just promise, that maybe, if the wind is in favor and the omens justify it; might actually change things.
It might sound as if he will change things, but the problem is that he is not offering onto what he is going to change this. He talks about Kyoto and everything else, but that says nothing unless nation sovereignty is put first not just describing ‘interest’ but establishing exception because the United States government works for its people because it is to serve not dictate over the people.
For aerobic life CO2 is necessary, as is solar irradiance. Not all life on earth require either of these things so your statement is overly broad.
With regard to economies introducing some form of carbon constraint that is only one symptom of a larger problem and not a necessary criterion for the destruction of their economies.
One of the first intelligent policy goals I’ve heard from Romney. I’d really like to see a complete overhaul of the EPA though. If there ever was an agency completely out of control it would be the EPA!
CO2 can’t be a pollutant if it is an element of life. Without it everything dies … I’ll say it again … EVERYTHING DIES!! Of course taxing and controlling it has the same effect on gullible economies … every economy that tries it dies. I’ll say it again … EVERY ECONOMY THAT TRIES IT DIES!! I therefore propose that CO2 is the antithesis of a pollutant. Do we really think governments can manage an ELEMENT OF LIFE and have a positive outcome?? Sounds like really bad idea to me. Wonder what people would say if someone screamed from the roof tops that we had WAYYYY to much oxygen and we needed to find a way to cut the amount by billions of tons. Might have more people thinking twice.
This is the first sensible thing I’ve heard Romney say!
Congratulation to Mr Romney. To speak the obvious truth today requires courage.
Congratulation to Mr Romney for his courage to speak the obvious truth.
Only in the head of a fuzzy-minded enviro-nazi lieberal could CO2 . . . a benign, rare, colorless gas that enables plants to grow be deemed a pollutant. Finally a politician that speaks truth!!!
In Europe Billions of Euros have been sucked out of the economy by the Cap and Trade Scam . . . countries dropping like Solar Panel Factories in the US . . . LOL
What, you mean Mitt Romney received a question from an easily-identifiable source and responded with exactly what they wanted to hear? Dog bites man, yawn.