If he were elected, would a President Mitt Romney rein in the Environmental Protection Agency?
According to one think tank, it's not clear there is much he could do. Patrick J. Michaels, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, does think a President Romney would probably try to get the EPA to reduce its regulatory impact on carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases.
"But it's unclear how much he can really do," concedes Michaels. "In 2007, the Supreme Court held that if the EPA found that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endangered human health and welfare, then according to the Court, the EPA must regulate it -- presumably to the point at which it no longer endangers."
That means a President Romney, or any president for that matter, cannot just simply say You no longer have to regulate, explains the Cato spokesman.
"The EPA would have to turn around its finding of endangerment," Michaels tells OneNewsNow. "And that is a very difficult task because they were very meticulous about the scientific and technical background that they used to create the initial endangerment finding, which came out of the Obama administration in 2009."
Michaels has been an outspoken critic of the initial endangerment finding. Cato plans to release an addendum to that information in the coming days.