The Ohio governor promised on the debate stage Thursday night in South Carolina that if elected president he’d freeze all government relations for one year.
“It’s a simple formula: commonsense regulations, which is why I think we should freeze all federal regulations for one year except for health and safety,” he said, adding that he’d complement this approach with cutting taxes and balancing the budget.
Environmental regulations would be the first to go under this hypothetical Kasich administration, even if they actually improve public health and safety. This includes much of the Obama administration’s advances in cutting mercury and carbon pollution, improving energy efficiency, and strengthening fuel economy standards.
Kasich has experimented in his home state. In the summer of 2014, Kasich signed legislation to freeze his state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards for two years, so a committee could examine their impact. Fifty-one businesses, including manufacturers, protested on the grounds that freezing energy-efficiency standards would raise costs, as did clean energy companies that warned they planned to move their operations elsewhere.
Now imagine what kind of turmoil this could cause nationwide. Kasich wants to hold off on regulations known to save lives.