Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio criticized proponents of the Green New Deal as people who “think America is a planet.”
During a Thursday night appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Florida senator praised the concept of a clean environment but noted that America can never get there “by destroying and gutting” its economy, especially when countries like China “are going to do what they are going to do.”
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“Why would we ever sign up for a program that in effect is unilateral disarmament against China, so we are not going to use any fossil fuels?” asked Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “We’re going to shut down our energy sector and our nuclear sector but China doesn’t have to. Why would we ever do something like that?”
“Because I think there are people that think America is a planet,” said Rubio. “America is a country. The rest of these countries are going to do what they are going to do.”
The Florida senator stressed his desire for energy efficiency and for “the air to be cleaner” while nothing that “innovations” are the key to getting there, not “destroying and gutting your economy.”
“Bottom line is this,” he continued. “It is unilateral disarmament economically. It’s worse than that it’s actually self-inflicted damage that we would do to ourselves if even pieces of that were implemented.” (RELATED: DHS Sued For Not Assessing The Environmental Cost Of Mass Immigration)
Rubio said that nuclear energy and natural gas could be cleaner options, but “they are against those too.”
“If the idea is that we’re going to power this country into the 21st century with solar panels and wind mills, that’s not going to work,” the senator concluded. “It doesn’t work anywhere, so you’ve got to have some consistent sort of revenue and you’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t destroy or gut your economy, but they are against those things as well. Nuclear energy is nearly impossible now to build any plant in America.”