The law included a requirement that oil companies establish a trust fund to purchase equipment and provide training for coastal communities that may have to respond to an oil spill emergency. Romney also supported green housing initiatives, committed hundreds of millions of state dollars to smart growth programs such as constructing housing near public transit, and filed legislation to give Massachusetts more authority to regulate projects in the state’s ocean waters.
But Romney will not be relying on his environmental record to win the election. He has instead taken up the conservative rallying call that environmental regulations are contributing to economic stagnation and that a remedy is needed now. Believe in America, “Mitt Romney’s Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth indicates that “day one” of the Romney presidency will produce five Executive Orders, including directions to all federal agencies to “immediately initiate the elimination of Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy or job creation, and then caps annual increases in regulatory costs at zero dollars.”
Romney states flatly that the EPA is the Obama administration’s “most active regulator.” In addition to the economic burden of the administration’s climate change rules, Romney cites EPA’s impending revisions to the 2008 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone as a prime example of overregulation. “The result could be up to $90 billion in new costs on American industry annually and the loss of more than 7 million jobs,” according to Believe in America. “It is this kind of reckless regulatory behavior that makes the American economy inhospitable to investment.”
The Obama White House may not completely disagree with this assessment. Late last year, the president decided to stall EPA’s imminent issuance of the revised ozone standard, citing the uncertainty that would result in “this economically challenging time.” That decision nearly prompted the resignation of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The White House indicated that the EPA should revisit the standard in 2013, which would be in line with the 5-year NAAQS review cycle specified by the CAA.
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Proper Cost Assessment
While environmentalists viewed the president’s withdrawal of the ozone revision as pro-business, the action does not warrant a mention in Believe in America. In fact, the document states that Romney will pursue a variety of major changes to the nation’s system of environmental protection, including pressing Congress to reform environmental regulations to ensure that there is proper assessment of their costs and seeking amendments that provide multiyear lead time between the date a new regulation is issued and the date companies must come into compliance.
“If there are compelling human health reasons to restrict industrial emissions, regulatory bodies must issue standards that can be achieved over a reasonable period of time, affording industries fair notice and a significant window in which to invest in the development and installation of new technology that would bring their facilities into compliance,” states the document.
Romney would also seek to initiate a review and elimination of “all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy”; require congressional approval of all new major regulations; and create one-stop shopping to streamline federal permitting of common activities.
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More Pipelines
On energy, Romney 
has explicitly attacked the administration’s nonapproval of the Keystone XL pipeline and pledges to ensure its rapid progress as well as the construction of additional pipelines to accommodate the expected growth in the Canadian supply of oil and natural gas.
While the Obama administration has come out in favor of hydraulic fracturing to develop oil and gas resources trapped in shale formations, the Romney campaign intimates that the federal government is overregulating the process, and states that “the EPA in a Romney administration will not pursue overly aggressive interventions designed to discourage fracking altogether.” Fracking has also been effectively overseen by the states for decades, adds the Romney paper, which suggests that a Romney presidency would seek to diminish federal control of the process.
Romney would also provide the states with more authority to permit energy development on federal land. The campaign accuses Obama of intentionally seeking to shut down oil, gas, and coal production in pursuit of his own alternative energy agenda. “Federal land open for exploration has declined nearly 20 percent on his watch, and the rate of permitting is down 37 percent,” according to the campaign’s Energy Independence white paper. It now takes a “shocking” 307 days to receive the permits to drill a new well, according to the paper, while the state of North Dakota can permit a project in 10 days and Colorado does it in 27 with no greater risks to the environment. The paper adds that some unspecified federal lands would be off-limits to development, an exception that provides no comfort to conservationists. In a recent speech, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar noted that under federal oversight oil and gas production on public lands has increased 13 percent over the past 4 years.
While the Romney documents do not offer soaring endorsements of coal-fired energy, the campaign states that “rules affecting coal power plants could be streamlined to achieve the necessary environmental protection while avoiding job-killing plant closures.” The main target here is EPA’s current proposal to limit carbon pollution from new power plants. The EPA concedes that a final rule that adheres to the proposal would effectively block the construction of new conventional coal-fired plants. A Romney presidency would likely yank the proposal off the table or stall its effectiveness if issued as a midnight rule.
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