President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.

Environmentalists at the EPA pulled this trick before in 2000 when the Clinton administration rushed out a finding that Mercury emissions from power plants were a growing public health threat pursuant to the Clean Air Act. That finding did not regulate power plants itself, but it did force the Bush administration to begin a lengthy regulatory process. The Obama EPA has estimated that this regulation alone will cost the U.S. economy $10.9 billion a year.

Reached for comment, Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said: