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Rubio Campaign Press Release - WATCH: Marco Rubio Never Supported Cap and Trade -- It's an Old Charlie Crist Attack

January 30, 2016

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Marco was asked during Thursday's Fox News debate about cap and trade.

The untrue claim he ever supported the idea — now the subject of a Ted Cruz ad in Iowa — is a recycled attack from liberal Charlie Crist in 2010.

In 2010, liberal Charlie Crist falsely edited an interview with Marco Rubio to make it look like he supported cap-and-trade. The Crist campaign edited out the key part where Marco actually said he opposes big government mandates like cap-and-trade.

Liberals always pull these tricks. In 2010, Marco's campaign effectively responded to these false liberal attacks by pointing out the full interview.

Watch the response video:

This is the key line that liberals cut:

The way we're gonna clean up our environment, the way we're gonna 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.

In 2007, Marco wrote an op-ed in the Miami Herald where he stated:

The potential to integrate greener approaches into the fabric of Florida's economy is unlimited, but we must be willing to embrace the free-market approach — not European-style big government mandates. . . . Instead of adopting measures that will have little if any impact on our environment and make life in Florida more expensive, we need a strategy that encourages environmental conservation, fuel efficiency and energy diversity, while continuing to stimulate our economy.

As National Journal wrote in 2015, liberals in Florida actually attack Marco for killing attempts to implement a liberal cap-and-trade system in Florida:

In his second session, Rubio played hardball with Crist. Climate change was one of Crist's signature issues, and he wanted the Legislature to pass a bill that would lay the groundwork for a California-style cap-and-trade system to cut carbon emissions. Rubio and House conservatives opposed the idea, but public sentiment was with Crist. The House ultimately passed the bill, but Rubio's team inserted a poison pill that prevented the plan from going into effect. "I fully credit him with the gutting of the bill," Gelber says.

Marco Rubio, Rubio Campaign Press Release - WATCH: Marco Rubio Never Supported Cap and Trade -- It's an Old Charlie Crist Attack Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/325912

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