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Rubio on cap and trade, then and now

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio's campaign said this week:

Were it not for Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist would likely have succeeded in imposing an oppressive cap-and-trade scheme in Florida that would have deepened Florida's economic crisis. While it might not have won him the adulation of Hollywood liberals, Marco Rubio stood his ground and defended Floridians from Charlie Crist's plans. As a result, cap-and-trade does not exist in Florida. As President Obama pursues the same type of job-killing, business-crippling cap-and-trade policies that Charlie Crist tried to impose, Marco Rubio offers Floridians reassurance that he's the only candidate in this race with a proven record of standing up to this agenda.

But wait. Then-House Speaker Marco Rubio told a Tallahassee public television station in early 2008:

Florida should position itself for what I believe is inevitable, and that is a federal cap and trade program.  Florida should do everything it can to be be an early complier so it that can access early compliance funds
and so that it can help influence what that cap and trade looks like at the federal level. So I'm in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap and trade or a carbon tax program and bring it back to Legislature for ratification sometime in the next two years.

Said Manley Fuller of the Environmental Defense Fund: "Rubio knew a greening of the econony was going to take place, and he wanted to position Florida to take advantage of it...I think he's taking a different tack than he did from the year before. I guess he's entitled to change his mind."

Full story here.

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