Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld laid out his climate change platform in New Hampshire this weekend, joining several Democrats who did the same in recent weeks.
The former Massachusetts governor wants to rejoin the Paris Climate agreement and make the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050.
He took questions at a forum in Durham from Seacoast residents, members of an interfaith alliance, the city of Dover’s mayor and environmental organizers.
Weld says he supports a price on carbon, but it's a lower one than what many Democrats have proposed. He says he’d get that through Congress by repealing the gas tax or rolling back other regulations along with it.
“I hate to say it’s the Republican votes you’ve got to buy, but if the Dems do as well in next year’s elections as I think they’re going to, you might not need to buy too many Republican votes,” he says.
Weld’s plan would also keep nuclear power as an important part of the nation’s fuel mix. And he says he sees natural gas as a bridge fuel to get the nation off fossil fuels.
“So that’s my proposal, and it’s quite different than every proposal from any of the Democratic presidential candidates,” Weld says. “And I assure you it’s even more different than Mr. Trump’s proposal, which would be doing nothing at all.”
Weld says the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks have targeted “good” environmental regulations. Weld says his belief that the government should pay for environmental protection is an exception to his generally Libertarian views.
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