In a Feb. 27 letter, the West Virginia Coal Association asked Mitt Romney:
What are your plans for managing the myriad of regulations being proposed and promulgated by the various federal agencies?
Romney responded:
The federal government has become a sprawling and largely unaccountable bureaucracy. To rein it back in, I believe we need both strong presidential leadership and sensible reform. As President, I will appoint cabinet heads and regulators who understand the needs of the American people and who see their own role as to get Washington out of the way wherever possible. I will also return the power to makes law back to Congress, where it belongs. I will ensure that every major new regulation faces an up-or-down vote in Congress. And I will impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars: if an agency wants to impose a new rule that imposes new costs on the economy, it will need to find other regulations of equivalent cost to remove. Our economy simply cannot afford any additional regulatory costs at this time.