Romney’s Goals on Environmental Regulation Would Face Difficult Path
Mitt Romney vowed in a campaign appearance earlier this year to “take a weed whacker” to the thicket of federal regulations adopted by the Obama administration and promised to impose a rigid freeze and cost cap on all new government rules. He has pledged to reverse a half-dozen major Environmental Protection Agency pollution and public health rules, to swiftly approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, to rewrite the ambitious new vehicle fuel efficiency standards and to open untouched coastal and wilderness areas to oil and gas exploration. Mr. Romney envisions a nation in which coal-burning power plants are given new life, oil derricks sprout on public lands and waters, industry is given a greater say in the writing and enforcement of environmental rules and the Code of Federal Regulations shrinks rather than grows.
