Brian Baird Quotes

While I have strongly and consistently supported the Clean Power Plan, and continue to do so, I cannot and will not support a proposal for a cap-and-trade system.

Recently though, our State Governments have discussed instigating a carbon trading scheme - the details are still to be decided - and that's an encouraging sign.

If you have a carbon cap and trade system, there'd be an agreed-to limit the amount of carbon we emit. That changes the economic picture for fossil technologies and for the renewable technologies. It makes the renewable technologies more attractive and the fossils less attractive.

Opponents of cap and trade should be careful what they wish for.

Well, I'm not saying that an emissions tax is ever going to be good policy.

Americans who want a healthy and clean environment expect lawful, effective, and economically sound regulation - the Clean Power Plan failed on all three counts.

When I am president of the United States of America, there will never be any cap-and-trade in the United States.

I hope the EPA will listen to the many votes over the years in Congress opposing cap-and-trade and rescind that proposed rule.

As a California state legislator, I supported our cap-and-trade law to force polluters to pay for releasing harmful greenhouse gases to combat climate change.

I think we can lower our emissions. I think the world will be better off if we did that, and we can do it without cap and trade.

Most Americans are more concerned about the economy and job creation. And they can't understand why the Obama administration or the Democrat majority in Congress wants to pass a bill like the cap-and-trade tax that will cost us jobs, that will hurt our economy, that will drive up costs for families, as well as for small businesses.

There are some that feel like human activity is the cause for carbon emissions, and because of that, we need to revert to where we were in the 1870s for carbon emissions. I just choose to disagree with that.

The reality is the cap-and-trade legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill.

But our energy woes are in many ways the result of classic market failures that can only be addressed through collective action, and government is the vehicle for collective action in a democracy.

Unlike many in the conservative camp, I accept theories of global warming, and accept that man-made activity has played a part in global warming. My differences have only been on what the solutions should be.

Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate.

Putting a tax on carbon could be an effective approach for curbing global warming pollution.

For the U.S., I think we should have a carbon tax, for environmental reasons.

I'm a fiscal hawk. I vote against all taxes, but I do believe the environment, and climate change, is a bigger issue than fiscal deficits are as a risk to the nation.

The crusade to convince us that global warming can only be dealt with by wealth destruction and higher energy prices began with an effort to 'raise awareness,' which turned into some delicate nanny-state prodding before efforts to artificially inflate prices.

The struggle against poverty in the world and the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions all has a single, very simple solution... Here it is: Put a price on carbon.

Green policy is about triggering a shift to a cleaner way of doing things. To be effective, it needs to incentivise the right behaviour, for example through tax breaks, and that needs to be paid for by disincentives on polluting behaviour.

But who knows, some years from now if there's a global emissions trading scheme agreement, as many have hoped for, then I'm sure Australia would be part of it.

I don't believe in a price on carbon, because the government is going to control it and they're going to fail.

When I was in Minnesota serving in the state Senate and in Washington, D.C., I did everything I could to defeat cap and trade. I didn't work to implement cap and trade.