U.S. EPA's budget request lays out an ambitious fiscal 2013 agenda that includes efforts to curb everything from fine particulates to carbon dioxide emissions.

But with Republicans in control of the House, the document appears likely to have a longer political than legislative life, acting as a starting point not for this year's appropriations process but for EPA's direction if President Obama is re-elected.

"It's clearly a political statement," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. "I think that everyone in town knows that the budget as a literal document is DOA already, but it is the administration's attempt to frame various issues in their own terms."

Among the agency's highest priorities, it says, are two rules it put off this year -- an air pollution rule for ozone that the administration was set to revise last year before the president scrapped the plan and a fine particulate matter rule that was supposed to be revised by last October.

The ozone rule, in particular, has raised the ire of the environmental community and was used by Republicans as an example of a rule Obama had to back away from because he knew it would harm the U.S. economy.

"I think most observers would agree that the president has simply acknowledged the obvious -- that EPA's rules create regulatory burdens and uncertainty that undermine job creation," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in a statement following the announcement.

The document also cites the need to regulate mercury emissions from a variety of sources and to regulate smog- and soot-forming emissions that cross state lines. The so-called Cross-State Air Pollution Rule was put on hold by a federal court late last year, but the budget plan says EPA would "continue collecting air data to inform implementation of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, targeting power plant emissions that drift across the borders of Eastern states and the District of Columbia."

The budget also discusses the need to regulate greenhouse gases, calling for $32.8 million over the current levels for climate programs including regulation. EPA wants $7 million more than last year to craft rules for stationary sources, which it is obligated to do under the terms of two settlement agreements with state and environmental plaintiffs.

"The economic costs of not addressing climate change could include reduced productivity through missed work and school days, increased hospital visits, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and even premature death -- especially for certain vulnerable populations like the elderly, the poor, and children," the budget proposal says.

The budget trumpets the administration's success in brokering a deal to increase fuel economy standards, which it says would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetimes of the vehicles sold through model year 2025.

O'Donnell said EPA appeared to be longer on rhetoric than on specifics in its budget, perhaps indicating that it would kick the can down the road on greenhouse gas regulations and other rules that the administration might feel would undermine the president's election hopes.

"To me, it might indicate that the White House is hedging its bets a little," O'Donnell said. "Even though there's some flowery language about climate change, other than the mobile-source proposals that are generally liked even by the auto industry, specifics are few."

He added, "My guess is that they're actually trying to minimize the opportunities for the EPA to be a target of Republican attack, while expressing a lot of things in positive generalities."

But Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation, said he finds the budget encouraging, especially because it helps illustrate the link between air pollution rules and climate change.

"It integrated any kind of greenhouse gas reductions fully into the air pollution framework, as it should be," he said.

"Critics want to suggest that we're talking about something wholly different when we're talking about carbon pollution or other things that cause climate change, and the reality is that a lot of the sources that produce other pollutants cause carbon pollution, as well, and they need to be addressed in a framework that addresses all of them," Mendelson added.