The Environmental Protection Agency is known throughout corporate culture for its excessive, confusing, and extremely expensive regulations. The EPA's undying lust for climate control policies has been limiting job growth and crippling innovation. Business development has consequently suffered, citing numerous EPA regulations, such as the National Ambient Air Quality Standards and the Clean Air Act. The American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute(ACCCI) believes that under the draconian rule of the EPA our Nation's businesses may fall behind the international competition, stating:

"In recent months, EPA has undertaken an unprecedented regulatory agenda by promulgating or proposing a host of rules in the areas of air, water, solid waste, greenhouse gases, and toxic chemicals ... in a nutshell, these new regulations will create permitting obstacles to expand and modernize our facilities and will impose significant additional costs that are difficult recoup in the face of intense international competition."

And with all of these regulations, where is the pay off? How do these blanket policies affect the individual? Upon hearing stories of small communities that are riddled with mesothelioma symptoms, you have to wonder why the EPA doesn't address issues like this more directly. Even today, individuals are just discovering that their homes and offices are insulated with asbestos. Because mesothelioma doesn't surface for up to 20 years after exposure, such a discovery can be devastating for the families who find asbestos in their home. With the mesothelioma life expectancy being no longer than fourteen months at most, American citizens are dying while the EPA stands there twiddling their thumbs and obstructing our corporations.

Slashing the EPA's budget is a necessity if we wish to create jobs, improve business, and regulate our deficit. Obama has admittedly proposed a 2012 budget cut of $1.6 billion dollars to the EPA, however the cut is only intended to reduce funding for states' clean water and drinking projects. The global climate change initiate of the EPA will remain an economic behemoth. Our business will still suffer excessive regulations. It is agitating, to say the least, that our current administration is destroying businesses in favor a trendy environmental agenda.

While clean water, a clean environment, and an overall concern for our planet are positive things, the current opportunity cost for the EPA's regulations tip the scale unfavorably for our nation. We can only hope that in the near future we are able to find a balance between environmental conservation and the prosperity of American industry.