From Yahoo News.

Excerpt:

Mitt Romney unveiled an energy plan Thursday that would give states the power to determine whether drilling and mining should occur on federal lands within their borders as part of a larger effort to increase domestic oil, coal and natural gas production and achieve energy independence by 2020.

[…]Under current law, the federal government controls oil, coal and gas permits for federal lands. But Romney argued determination should be up to state officials, insisting individual states are in a better position to “develop, adopt and enforce regulations” on local basis than the federal government–which his campaign says has been unduly influenced by Washington politics.

This is going to get him some votes in North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alaska, etc. We have a lot of energy just waiting to be extracted from the Bakken an Shale and the Marcellus Shale, for example. Just keep the federal government out it and get on with getting the price of gas back under $2. Put people back to work, too.

A policy paper released ahead of the candidate’s speech by the Romney campaign argues President Barack Obama “has intentionally sought to shut down oil, gas and coal production in pursuit of his own alternative energy agenda.”

Romney said that loosening regulations on the energy industry will benefit taxpayers by lowering gas costs and reducing the cost of consumer goods, which have increased as companies pay higher energy prices. He’ll argue that allowing more federal drilling would not only bring money back into the nation’s budget but would result in lower energy prices that could create jobs, lower the trade deficit and increase the nation’s security.

“Three million jobs come back to this country by taking advantage of something we have right underneath our feet. That’s oil, and gas, and coal. We’re going to make it happen. We’re going to create those jobs,” Romney said Thursday. “Let me tell you what else it does. It adds $500 billion to the size of our economy. That is more good wages. That’s an opportunity for more Americans to have a bright and prosperous future.”

The push is part of what Romney touted as an effort to achieve energy independence by 2020, a plan that also includes expanding offshore energy development along the coast of Virginia and North and South Carolina as well as approval of the Keystone energy pipeline linking Canada to the United States.

I think that Romney is doing a good job now of articulating specific policies that will fix the economy.