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Rick Perry gets a laugh out of Texas Truth-O-Meter

By W. Gardner Selby January 15, 2015

In a pre-departure interview, Texas Gov. Rick Perry briefly mentioned, and laughed about, PolitiFact.

We weren't there, but video posted by the San Antonio Express-News shows Perry telling Peggy Fikac of the newspaper and Mike Ward of the Houston Chronicle that on his watch, Texas had reduced "our nitrogen oxide levels by 63.5 percent."

"Say 63 percent," Perry then said, "that way, we won’t get PolitiFacted." Then he laughed. Off camera, Ward can he heard saying: "Not gonna miss that, are you?" See for yourself at about the 25:50 mark of the video with this story.

Last May, by the way, we rated Half True Perry’s claim that since 2000, Texas had reduced "harmful pollutants in the air like nitrogen oxide by 62.5 percent and ozone by 23 percent — a reduction that is 12 percent greater than the national average." The figures were accurate, but his claim took into account only one NOx source — industrial — which he failed to note. Nearly three-quarters of NOx emissions come from other sources. Perry’s declaration also didn’t reflect on the significance of federal oversight.

See Perry's full Truth-O-Meter report card here.

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Rick Perry gets a laugh out of Texas Truth-O-Meter