Washington – “Executive branch agencies have done good work in reviewing existing regulations and recommending where they can be streamlined, improved or eliminated. It was a worthy exercise, and Business Roundtable thanks the administration for conducting the review.

“President Obama also deserves credit for recognizing that excessive and ill-conceived regulations can harm the economy and discourage hiring. We urge him to apply that same insight to the billions of dollars of pending regulations that could hold back growth and job creation,” said John Engler, president of Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies.

“The greatest concern right now is the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to issue new air quality standards for ozone, the most expensive environmental regulation in American history. By the EPA’s own estimates, the rule could cost as much as $90 billion a year. Not only that, the rule is discretionary; the EPA is not required to review the air standards until 2013.

“So the regulatory savings outlined today are fine and welcomed, but the risk of even greater regulation remains a real economic threat.”