CREDIT: AP PHOTO – VINCENT YU

Google’s controversial decision to fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was a ‘mistake,” company chairman Eric Schmidt admitted on Monday, saying the group is spreading lies about global warming and ‘making the world a much worse place.”

In an interview on NPR’s Diane Rehm show, Schmidt said the free-market lobbying group’s anti-climate and anti-clean energy positions are harmful to future generations, and a bad investment idea for the company.

‘Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place,” Schmidt said. ‘And so we should not be aligned with such people – they’re just, they’re just literally lying.”

Schmidt did not say that Google had officially cut ties with the group, but did say that the ‘consensus within the company was that [the investment] was some sort of mistake and so we’re trying to not do that in the future.”

Google’s press office has not yet returned ThinkProgress’ request for […]