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Just What is Romney’s Position on Global Warming?

-- John -- 01/31/2007

This week former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney spent two days in South Carolina shoring up support for his presidential bid, but while approached on more than one occasion to address global warming, he offered no immediate reactions.  In 2004 Romney did have some thoughts on the issue, releasing a Climate Protection Plan for Massachusetts that would have followed the Kyoto Protocol by reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2010.  But Romney eventually backed off on the plan, and in December 2005 pulled out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort by other New England states to start reducing emissions in 2009 and by 2015 stabilize them at 2002-2004 levels.  The deeper question perhaps is whether Romney is ready to commit to the fact that global warming is being caused by human activity.  For example, in a July 2003 letter to New York Governor George Pataki, Romney writes, "I concur that climate change is beginning to effect on [sic] our natural resources and that now is the time to take action." But in a letter that appeared in the Boston Globe in May 2004, Romney states, "I read one book over the summer that said, 'gee, global warming is happening for reasons unrelated to human participation,' and other reports, far more, indicate, 'no no, it's very much driven by humans.' Well, I don't know."  As recent quetsions from South Carolina citizens suggest, however, presidential candidates will need to be able to better explain their position on this serious problem.