Bachmann knocks Pawlenty on cap-and-trade at Iowa debate

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) wants to tether former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to his past support for cap-and-trade policies to curb climate change, even though Pawlenty has fled from the position during the GOP presidential campaign.

The two Minnesotans traded blows at Thursday night’s GOP debate in Iowa ahead of that state’s critical straw poll on Saturday. (The Hill’s Cameron Joseph has much more from the Iowa debate here).

Bachmann listed Pawlenty’s support for cap-and-trade — a policy that has become politically toxic in GOP circles — among several positions he staked out as governor that Bachmann said have made Pawlenty’s record consistent with the views of President Obama — a Democrat.

“I would say, 'Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap-and-trade in our state,' ” Bachmann said, while casting herself as a fighter against cap-and-trade and several other Democratic policies.

In 2009 the House, then under Democratic control, passed a cap-and-trade bill, but it collapsed in the Senate, and the White House is no longer pushing the policy, considered dead on Capitol Hill.

“On cap and trade, I was there from the very beginning giving Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [(D-Calif.)] a run for her money,” Bachmann said.

Pawlenty said Bachmann “has a record of misstating and making false statements,” and, in his own attack, said “it’s an indisputable fact that in Congress her record of accomplishment and results is nonexistent.”

In a later interview on Fox News, Pawlenty reiterated that he now opposes cap-and-trade and knocked Bachmann for inaccurately claiming it was implemented in Minnesota, which it wasn’t.

“She brought it up inaccurately. Again, she said I imposed it in Minnesota. No. I didn't. We had legislation that studied it. We considered it, but well before it never got imposed or even close to imposed I rejected it and came out against it several years ago. So again, she's aloof with facts,” Pawlenty said.

Pawlenty, as governor, agreed in 2007 to participate in the multistate Midwest Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, but the plan has not come into force, and multistate plans now face big hurdles as policies to curb greenhouse gases have become increasingly unpopular among Republican governors and lawmakers.

A separate cap-and-trade program for power plants among Northeastern states remains the only functioning cap-and-trade program among U.S. states, although officials in California are moving ahead with emissions caps there. 



Pawlenty also cut a radio ad for the Environmental Defense Fund in 2008 that urged Congress to “get moving” and “cap greenhouse gas pollution now.” But he has been running away from his past embrace of cap-and-trade for months on the campaign trail, calling it a mistake.