PolitiFact Checks Gingrich’s Claim He ‘Never Favored Cap and Trade’ - False
In order to keep his status as current frontrunner among the GOP candidates, it’s vital for Newt Gingrich to convince the right wing base that he’s just as ignorant about climate change as the other GOP candidates, despite the fact that in the past he clearly had a grain or two of sense about the issue, and didn’t think all the world’s scientists were engaged in a massive hoax on humanity.
In order to make the base believe in his ignorance, it’s necessary for Gingrich to tell blatant lies about his past positions, and Politifact catches him in a particularly blatant example: Newt Gingrich claims he ‘never favored cap and trade’.
Three years ago, Newt Gingrich went on television, cozied up to Nancy Pelosi and preached the need to respond to global warming. “We do agree our country must take action to address climate change,” Gingrich said from a couch, which was oddly positioned in front of the U.S. Capitol.
What seemed like genuine, bipartisan PR in 2008 now looks like conservative heresy by the current frontrunner in the Republican presidential race. Gingrich now calls that TV ad the “dumbest single thing” he’s ever done and insists his policy stance on the environment passes all conservative muster.
“If you notice, I never favored cap and trade,” he said in a candidate forum in New York City on Dec. 3, 2011.
Really? Never?
We did a little digging and it didn’t take long to find that Gingrich has been inconsistent and has at times advocated cap and trade legislation when combined with other approaches.
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Our ruling
Gingrich, as a presidential candidate in 2011, declared, “I never favored cap and trade.”
But we found solid evidence he did, with the condition that carbon caps be combined with tax incentives to encourage energy companies to innovate. He told Frontline a cap and trade system combined with tax incentives is “something I would strongly support,” and even took a hindsight-is-20/20 stance, saying the country “would be much better off” if cap and trade had been instituted. That’s favoring it. We rate his statement False.
