South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham continued to spread the message that “manmade emissions are hurting the environment” and pressing for Republicans to stop arguing the science. “I think the science is sound. And at the end of the day, I ask my competitors: What is the environmental policy of the Republican Party?”
Ohio Gov. John Kasich campaigned in New Hampshire, where he told potential voters at a town hall meeting that his energy policy would include multiple energy sources. “We need everything. We need oil, gas, clean coal. We need renewables,” Kasich said.
In a sneak peak into Donald Trump’s book, he reiterated his position that “violent climate changes are nothing new.” In the book, which hits shelves next week, Trump also states that “so-called global climate change is causing us some problems: it’s causing us to waste billions of dollars to develop technologies we don’t need to fulfill our energy needs.”
The highlight of the week came in the form of the so-called happy hour debate for low polling candidates. In this forum, Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki aired their climate positions.
“Government’s role is to incentivize innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit in America,” Pataki said. “We could have far more clean energy… let the private sector do this Not only would we solve our problems. We would have clean energy, cheaper energy here. We could export those technologies to places like China and like India so we would grow our economy, have a far greater impact globally, have a secure domestic source of energy, and cleaner, healthier air.”
Graham said he is “trying to solve problems somebody better solve.”
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum referenced global warming in the context of brining jobs back to the U.S. from China, where they can be housed in a less carbon intensive environment.
The sole mention of climate change in the prime time debate came when the moderator posed a question to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the waning minutes of the event.
“What we should do is be investing in all types of energy,” Christie said. He cited that in New Jersey, his administration “worked with the private sector to make solar energy affordable and available.”
“That’s the way to deal with global warming, climate change.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz discussed what it means to be a climate skeptic in an interview with Glenn Beck. “Climate change is not science,” Cruz told Beck in the interview. “It’s religion. Look at the language where they call you a denier.”
“Any good scientist is a skeptic,” Cruz said. “If he’s not, he or she should not be a scientist.”