Environmental groups drop six figures to applaud EPA, Obama

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Environment America are teaming up on a six-figure online ad campaign praising the Environmental Protection Agency and President Obama for supporting efforts to cut pollution from cars and certain power plants.

The ads will run on social media and local news websites in four states key to the debate over emissions and the 2012 election: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

"The standards will save tens of thousands of American lives, prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood asthma symptoms, and avoid tens of thousands of heart attacks, according to the EPA," NRDC president Frances Beinecke said in a statement. "These health benefits are expected to generate up to billions of dollars of savings. The magnitude of these health benefits could make this rule one of the biggest public health and environmental accomplishments of the Obama administration."