“I do not believe we have to destroy our economy in order to protect our environment” — that was part of Sen. Rubio’s response to a climate question in the Fox News debate.
Brett Baier posed this excellent question: “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?”
Rubio’s response: “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.”