In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama pledged to install the first-ever pollution limits on smog, widely regarded as a contributor to global warming and health risks. Three years later, now-President Obama has struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s smog limits, which were once his own proposals. Environmental groups, along with his already disenchanted liberal base, are not so happy, and five of them — including the American Lung Association — are suing his administration for illegally injuring the American people.

The proposed pollution limits would have brought down ozone exposure from 75 to 70 parts per billion. According to the EPA, this seemingly small decrease would have cost around $19 to $25 billion, which is a hefty cost for a government scrambling to find money. However, the agency also calculated that the monetary value of the health benefits would have been as high as $37 billion, more than making up for the costs of the regulations.

President Obama’s reasoning for his action was that it was not a smart move in this economy, politically or economically and that he would reconsider the proposal after further yet necessary scientific studies in 2013. Beside the fact that he may not be president at this time, it seems that we are once again faced with a flip-flop from the commander-in-chief who ran on a green platform.

Environmental jobs are a key to the future trajectory of our economy; it is a whole new sector that can unleash an enormous number of opportunities by replacing the old with the new. We have to make sacrifices to build a sustainable 21st-century economy and, if we have to suffer high costs on the wealthy’s account in the short-term, so be it. It is the long-term we must be looking at.

We have seen negligence from the administration on Keystone XL — the enormous and volatile pipeline running from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico — and this is yet another item to throw on the list of environmental gaffes courtesy of the Obama administration. This is a logical, common sense proposal by the EPA that saves peoples’ lungs and lives, yet somehow the clench of this anti-anything-regulatory stigma that is floating around the Hill is shutting down the hope that this administration seems to be running low on.