"What would you say to Sen. Inhofe and others in the Senate who are resisting even science? What's your message to them here today?" Kerry asked.
"My message, I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere —"
And do it urgently, now?" Kerry interrupted.
"Urgently, yes," Gingrich said.
But Gingrich also said that up to now, conservatives have been slow to loathe with environmental policy because, he said, "For most of the last 30 years, the environment has a been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes. And therefore if you're a conservative, if you hear these arguments, you know what's coming next."
"So even though it might be the right thing to do, you might end up fighting it because you don't want the bigger government and the higher taxes."
Gingrich said there must be a "green conservatism."
Dec 2011: Gingrich on Cap-and-Trade “At the forum hosted tonight by Fox News host Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich said this about cap-and-trade:
”But if you notice, I never favored cap-and-trade. I – in fact, I actively testified against it. I was at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee the same day Al Gore was there to testify for it. I testified against it. And through American Solutions we actively fought it in the Senate, and I think we played a major role in defeating it. “
Both the Perry and Paul campaigns e-mailed media this quote from Gingrich in 2007 on PBS after he made the claim that he had “never favored cap-and-trade”: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.”
Carbon Copies Romney-Obama: "That plant kills people!"