Ya think? From Politico:
President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is putting some hazardous speed bumps on his 2012 electoral road in key swing states.
Controversial rules covering everything from power plants to petroleum refiners, manufacturers, coal mines and farmers could come back to haunt the White House in industrial and Midwestern states that carried Obama to the presidency two years ago.
Political battlegrounds like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia that Obama won in 2008 will be watching how the EPA moves on climate change. Coal-reliant states such as Missouri — which Obama lost by less than 1 percentage point — will be monitoring clean air rules and coal ash standards. And farm states that Obama carried, including Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, are waiting on a proposal to tighten air quality limits for microscopic soot.
Obama’s situation is tricky. He campaigned on the need to address climate change and faces pressure on his left to tackle a range of issues that environmentalists complain were neglected by former President George W. Bush.
But with EPA regulations expected to come out in rapid-fire succession over the next two years, Republican presidential hopefuls are already adding them to the larger, anti-Obama narrative against expansive government.
The rest here.