Countries for whom citizens depend on low wages and dangerous jobs to put food on the table could care less about the US standards for manufacturing and production. The US and Western Europe were tremendous polluters during our industrial revolutions, and many of these countries are going through their booms now. Who are we to strap them down with regulation to kill their burgeoning economies?
You are right that there is a price to pay either way. However, analyzing current US regulations and reducing or eliminating them when they don't make sense or are based on decades old testing and measurement systems just makes sense. Regulating our industries to the point that we are no longer competitive is a recipe for dependency not freedom.
If I had my way, we would put a laser beam focus on nuclear power, leveraging the latest technology and innovation to broaden it's use in our grid. The Chernobyl and 3-Mile Island issues have put a forever stain on this nearly limitless power source. For cripes sake, we've had naval vessels and ice breakers powered by nuclear for decades. Make energy cheap and the rest of the economy will thrive whether we're talking about gasoline, diesel, natural gas, or coal.
