Jon Huntsman on natural gas subsidies at the Google Fox News Debate (Video)

Former Utah Governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman fielded a question about subsidies for natural gas during the September 23, 2011 Google Fox News Debate in Orlando, Florida.

Here's what he had to say:

Chris Wallace, Fox News: Governor Huntsman, in Utah, you offered millions of dollars in tax credits to promote clean energy. In June you said that as president you would subsidize natural gas companies. How is that different from the Obama administration, which gave the solar panel company Solyndra a half-a-billion dollars in federal loan guarantees, and as we all know, that company ended up bankrupt, and we taxpayers ended up on the hook?

Jon Huntsman: Chris, first of all, it's an honor to be here in Orlando, home of my wife, the greatest human being I've known in 28 years. 

We've learned some important lessons as this economy has spun out of control. We have some hard decisions to make. And we're not going to fix the problem. We're not going to be able to bring our people together in America until we fix the economy.

I'm convinced that part of the divide that we're experiencing in the United States, which is unprecedented, it's unnatural, and it's un-American, is because we're divided economically, too few jobs, too few opportunities.

We have learned that subsidies don't work and that we can no longer afford them. I believe that we can move toward renewable energy, but we're going to have to have a bridge product. Everybody wants to draw from the sun and draw from the wind, and I'm here to tell you that eventually that will make sense, but today the economics don't work.

We need something like natural gas. I've put forward an energy independence program, along with tax reform and regulatory reform. Just by drawing from natural gas, for example, you're looking at 500,000 to 1 million jobs over the next five years. It is ours, it's affordable, it has important national security implications, and we should begin the conversion process.

Wallace: But just a 30-second follow-up, sir. In June, you told the New Hampshire Union Leader as president you would subsidies the natural gas industry.

Huntsman: I would be willing to begin an effort, so long as there was a rapid phase-out. I do not like subsidies. I do not like long-term subsidies. But if there was some sort of way to get the ball rolling with a - with a - with a quick phase-out, I would be in favor of that.