McCain Veeps and Cap-and-Trade

Nachama Soloveichik over at the Club for Growth kindly sends me a rundown of where the possible McCain veeps stand on cap-and-trade legislation. (But nothing on Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman.) Here are some excerpts:

Charlie Crist: This year, Crist has pushed for and signed legislation [for] a plan to cap carbon emissions in his own state.... Governor Crist also signed an agreement with the British government to join forces in creating a global cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gas emissions.

Tim Pawlenty: The Minnesota governor has already passed energy mandates last year, requiring utilities to produce 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and set targets for the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Now, Pawlenty is seeking to take his environmental progress regional. In January of this year, Pawlenty met with other Midwest governors, signing the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord to establish a cap-and-trade market in the Midwest.

Bobby Jindal: Governor Jindal supported some kind of government mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but to what extent remains unclear. In June 2007, he voted in support of (voted against removing) a section in the 2008 Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill that expressed "the sense of the Congress that there should be enacted a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory, market-based limits and incentives on emissions of greenhouse gases that slow, stop, and reverse the growth of such emissions at a rate and in a manner that: (1) will not significantly harm the United States economy; and (2) will encourage comparable action by other nations that are major trading partners and key contributors to global emissions."

Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney's position on cap-and-trade is the hardest to pin down. Campaigning in New Hampshire last year, Governor Romney was captured on video saying about cap-and-trade: "I support it on a global basis as one of the possible solutions. I do not support it for the USA alone. I want to do it with other nations involved." The governor could also be found during the campaign attacking the McCain's sponsorship of cap-and-trade legislation, saying it would have increased energy costs for the average Florida family of four by $1,000 and would "kill jobs."

Mike Huckabee: Governor Huckabee has long taken a religious approach to the environment, and cap-and-trade is no exception. In a 2007 Bloomberg article, Mike Huckabee said he supports a cap-and-trade system because "it goes to the moral issues. We have a responsibility to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, to conserve energy, to find alternative forms of energy that are renewable and sustainable and environmentally friendly."

Governors Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, and Rob Portman do not have a public position on the legislation.