Rick Perry: 'Substantial number' of climate scientists 'manipulating' data

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry suggested Wednesday that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by scientists who are motivated by cash.

"There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects," the Texas governor told a group of supporters at the "Politics and Eggs" Breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire.

"I think we are seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change," Perry added. "Yes, our climate has changed. They been changing for ever since the Earth was formed."

"But I do not buy into a group of scientists, who have been, in some cases, found to be manipulating this information. And the cost to the country and to the world of implementing these anti-carbon programs is in the billions if not trillions of dollars at the end of the day. And I don't think, from my perspective, that I want America to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven, and from my perspective, is more and more being put into question."

Watch this video from C-SPAN, broadcast Aug. 17, 2011.