[AnIInWon]

LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...,6899709.story

President Obama Friday asked the Environmental Protection Agency to drop the development of controversial rules to cut smog levels, pleasing the business community but upsetting environmentalists.

The business community and the Republican Party have loudly decried the possibility of more stringent rules on ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, as job-killers.

...

Late last week, the State Department issued an environmental impact statement that removed a key hurdle to the construction of the widely criticized Keystone Xl oil pipeline. For two weeks now, hundreds of environmentalists, some of them former campaign workers for Obama, have been arrested for protesting the pipeline in front of theWhite House.

In a statement, the president said: "I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator [Lisa] Jackson withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time."