Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed that California be allowed to implement much tougher environmental regulations than the rest of the country. The Bush administration rejected California's request. Do you side with the governor or with the president?
COOPER: Governor Romney, what did you think of Senator McCain's response? And just to remind you, the original question is do you side with Governor Schwarzenegger or with the Bush administration on this issue?
ROMNEY: Well, I side with states to be able to make their own regulations with regards to emissions within their own states.
ROMNEY: But let's talk about our policies with regards to greenhouse gases and global warming.
I think we all agree that America should become energy independent. The consequences of us continuing to buy over $1 billion of oil a day from people who oftentimes use this money against us is bad for our economy; it's bad for our foreign policy; and all that energy being used is probably bad for our environment.
It's probably warming our environment. And we want that to stop. So a unilateral action to get ourselves off of foreign oil makes all the sense in the world.
Nuclear power, biodiesel, biofuel, all the renewables, liquefied coal, where you sequester the carbon dioxide, those things make all the sense in the world.
But when you put in place a new cap or a mandate, and particularly if you don't have any safety valve as to how much the cost of that cap might be, you would impose on the American people, if you do it unilaterally, without involving all the world, you'd impose on the American people a huge new effective tax: 20 percent on utilities, 50 cents a gallon for gasoline -- that's according to the energy information agency -- would be imposed on us.
And here's what happens. I've lived in the business world. I've lived in the real economy for 25 years of my life. What happens if you do that? You put a big burden on energy in this country as the energy-intensive industries say, "We're going to move our new facilities from America to China, where they don't have those agreements."
And you end up polluting and putting just as much CO-2 in the air because the big energy users go there. That's why these ideas make sense, but only on a global basis.
They don't call it "America warming." They call it "global warming." That's why you've got to have a president that understands the real economy.
COOPER: Just so I'm clear, you said you side with the states. That means you side with Governor Schwarzenegger on this one?
ROMNEY: I side with states being able to make their own decisions, even if I don't always agree with the decisions they make.