Mitt Romney Playing Both Sides of Climate Change Card (Again)

Mitt Romney, left, stated at a recent town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire that he does not think carbon pollution threatens human health and would not green-light EPA climate regulations if he were in the White House. The GOP presidential candidate signaled the reversal to one of the Obama administration's top environmental policies six weeks after he acknowledged during a campaign stop that global warming is real.

According to Romney,

"My view is that the EPA in getting into carbon and regulating carbon has gone beyond the original intent of that legislation, and I would not take it there,"

Romney last month ignited conservative complaints when he told a New Hampshire audience that he believed in the widespread scientific consensus that humans have contributed to a warming planet.

So it appears that Romney believes that humans have contributed to climate change, but he believes that it does not pose a threat to human health.

As governor in Massachusetts, Romney took the opening steps toward joining a cap-and-trade compact for power plants known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. But he pulled out of the program just before it formed in late 2005. (Politico, 7/18/2011)