EXCLUSIVE—Carly Fiorina: Federal Cap and Trade Not ‘Necessary or Helpful’

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that cap and trade isn’t “necessary or helpful.”

“I don’t think cap and trade is necessary or helpful,” Fiorina stated when asked if she thinks a Republican should support cap and trade.”I think what we need is to become an energy powerhouse of the 21st century. That drives energy prices down and it gives us strong enough industries to innovate.”

Fellow GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) previously backed cap and trade when he was Speaker of the House in Florida.

“Florida should do two things,” Rubio stated in 2008 in a video discovered and reported by Breitbart News’s Matthew Boyle.

First, 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 an early complier so it 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 the legislature for ratification some time in the next two years.

Liberals such as former Vice President Al Gore supported a federal cap and trade program.

“It will be difficult for sure but we can back away from the fiscal cliff and the climate cliff at the same time,” stated Gore in 2012. “One way is with a carbon tax.”

As Breitbart News reported:

Cap and trade support from Republicans has been catastrophic for them in Iowa. For instance, back in the 2014 U.S. Senate race, the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs uncovered how Mark Jacobs—then the GOP frontrunner—in 2007 backed cap and trade, just like Rubio did in this video. That basically blew up the Mark Jacobs for Senate campaign in Iowa.

“It’s a hot-button issue with Republicans who argue that cap and trade is a government overreach and would cause energy prices to skyrocket for everyday Americans,” Jacobs reported.