Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly overrating mortgage-backed securities, whose meltdown led to the 2008 financial crisis, according to a report published Thursday.

In particular, The New York Times said the government was looking into whether analysts for S&P, a unit of McGraw Hill Co., wanted to give lower ratings to the mortgage securities, but were overruled by business managers. S&P, like other ratings agencies, collects fees from issuers for rating securities.

The Justice Department declined to comment to CNN regarding the reported investigation. S&P did not immediately return comment to CNNMoney.

The report also said the Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating S&P, and might be looking into rating agencies Moody's Corp. and Fitch Ratings, concerning mortgage securities. SEC officials had no comment to CNNMoney.

Concerns that ratings agencies overrated mortgage securities have been voiced ever since the financial crisis. But the situation is complicated politically by the fact that the report comes nearly two weeks after S&P downgraded the credit rating of U.S. debt, stripping the world's largest economy of its prized AAA status.

President Obama, in his latest effort to patch frayed relations with businesses, signed an executive order Tuesday intended to "strike the right balance" between health, safety and environmental regulations and economic growth.

The president, in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, wrote that his order will prompt "a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive."

"It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades," Obama wrote.

The business world has locked horns with the Obama administration over such legislation as health care and financial reform that the president signed into law last year. In his annual State of American Business address on Jan. 11, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue targeted the "web of red tape" in health care, financial reform and energy regulation as holding back economic recovery.

After his Democratic Party suffered a big defeat in the November midterm election, losing control of the House, the president promised to improve his ties with business.