One of the Senate's most liberal members, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is signalling that the votes are there should the chamber decide to pass legislation delaying the EPA's regulation of carbon emissions:

But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), one of the strongest advocates in the upper chamber for reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, warned that such legislation, if passed, would likely be rejected by President Obama. She also said attempts to delay EPA’s climate change authority would be met with legal challenges.“I don’t think they’ll vote to repeal the endangerment finding — I think what they’ll probably do is say let’s delay the rule,” Boxer said. “And that would probably become a court case.”The endangerment finding, which says that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare, compels the EPA to regulate the emissions. Overturning the finding would take away the agency’s climate change regulatory authority. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has called for a delay in EPA’s climate authority, while Republicans have said they want to outright block the agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Aside from Manchin, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is also opposed to the new EPA regulations. Boxer says that Obama would likely veto a bill that delayed the EPA regulations, however the White House is also bending over backwards to appear less hostile to business and the new carbon regs are a full-frontal assault on the economy. If I were a Republican Senator -- and especially one of the Senate's centrist Democrats -- I would be awfully tempted to pass the bill and see if Obama has the guts to veto it. If he does veto such a bill, then that's pretty clear evidence that this administration can credibly be called anti-business.