Obama speech pushes back against GOP green rule rollbacks

President Obama’s big jobs speech Thursday takes an apparent shot at GOP efforts to scale back environmental regulations.

It touts the administration's own regulatory review efforts, noting "We should have no more regulation than the health, safety, and security of the American people require."

But Obama added:

But what we can’t do — what I won’t do — is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades. I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury, or laws that prevent the health insurance industry from shortchanging patients. I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn’t be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards.

Obama himself scuttled planned EPA smog regulations last week, but the White House is vowing to defend a suite of other air-pollution rules, such as air toxics standards for power plants.