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Our Climate Eye captain Chelsea Henderson broke her ankle yesterday and even though she was working in the ambulance en route to the hospital, the surgeons have advised against her working during surgery today. So I’m covering. In lieu of sending her chocolates or flowers, Chelsea asks that you forward this email to a prospective republicEn member (so they can sign up here) and then send her chocolates and flowers.

Much of this weeks climate discussions from GOP presidential candidates came from the Fox New – Google GOP Debate in Iowa. Sen. Rick Santorum made compelling arguments that brining jobs back to the US from China will help reduce emissions.
“Remember this: China produces 5 times more CO2 and other pollutants per dollar of GDP. You want to help the environment? Bring jobs back to America,” Santorum stated.

During the debate Brett Baier asked Senator Rubio, “On the issue of climate change, in 2008 you wanted Florida to get ahead of other states and pass a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions, which many Republicans thought at the time would hurt the Florida economy [by the way, here’s the video of Sen. Rubio saying that]. Now you’re a skeptic of climate-change science and you warn that federal efforts to fight climate change will cost US jobs and hurt the US economy. So why the change?”

Senator Rubio responded “First that’s not entirely the story. At the time, the liberal governor of Florida who claimed he was a Republican — Charlie Christ — he wanted to impose cap-and-trade on Florida and I opposed him. I was the first person out of the box who opposed him on it. And then we saw the leading candidates for president at the time — both the Republicans and the Democrats — all supported it. And what we said is, if they’re going to impose this on us, we better prepare to protect the state from it. But I have never supported cap and trade and I never thought it was a good idea. And I do not believe it’s a good idea now. I do not believe we have to destroy our economy in order to protect our environment. And especially with these programs that they’re asking us to pass but will do nothing to protect the environment but will be devastating to our economy. When I am president of the US there will never be any cap and trade.”

During the debate Senator Cruz was questioned about his position on ethanol after he received harsh criticism from Iowa Governor Branstad. Cruz responded, “I think God has blessed this country with enormous natural resources and we should pursue all of the above: we should be developing oil and gas and coal and nuclear and wind and solar and ethanol and biofuels. But I don’t believe that Washington should be picking winners and losers. There should be no mandates and no subsidies whatsoever. And indeed my tax plan…eliminates every mandate, every subsidy, so there’s no subsidies for oil and gas, no subsidies for anyone….I have introduced legislation that would phase-out the ethanol mandate over 5 years, but that is in the context of having no subsidies for anyone.”

Carly Fiorina made her stance that climate change isn’t a top national security issue known, stating “Newsflash President Obama; newsflash Mrs. Clinton: climate change is not our biggest national security threat.”

Earlier in the week Senator Rubio cast doubt over the effectiveness of climate change policies. In an interview with a local New Hampshire news station he stated “My argument has been that I don’t support these laws that they want us to pass. They want us to pass laws that will do nothing to impact the environment. But they will be devastating to our economy.”

Do you live in an early primary state? Have you heard one of the candidates speak about climate change? If so, let us know!