We’ve had plenty of time for the discussion of the EPA’s new green energy initiatives and carbon restrictions to sink in to the American collective consciousness. (Even if it does get shoved out of the news on a daily basis.) It’s also been made clear that these regulations are going to affect the available energy pool on the grid and exert upward pressure on retail prices for fuel, heating and electricity. The greater goal, we are told, is to reduce the nation’s overall carbon footprint and, presumably, improve the climate change situation.

So how generous is the public feeling about pitching in toward this effort? According to a new poll… not so much.

A poll for the Partnership for a Better Energy Future, a coalition that includes the U.S. Chamber, found that almost half said they aren’t willing to spend even one dollar more to pay for EPA’s radical restructuring of America’s electricity grid.

Almost half of those surveyed (49%) believe that proposed carbon regulations will result in higher energy costs.

More than half (54%) do not think the United States can afford those higher energy costs and job losses that will come with them.

Here’s the basic breakdown. When asked the question, How much extra would you be willing to pay for energy each month if the Obama administration’s new regulations to reduce carbon emissions from power plants reduced global carbon emissions by 1.5%, nearly half the nation has determined that the effort isn’t worth one red cent. When you change the phrase “pay for energy” to read, pay for your household’s energy, the number climbs to more than 50%.

I know that we’re all up in arms over Ebola and ISIS these days, but as all the candidates make their final case to the public next week, they would do well to remember that the issues which always move voters the most are the ones they can relate to on a personal level. The President may not be on the ballot, as so many of his party’s candidates like to say, but his policies most assuredly are. And these EPA regulations are absolutely his policies.

Let some of the voters dwell on that for a week or so while they stockpile gas masks, canned goods and ammunition. If the campaigns think this is too boring to talk about given all of the other excitement swamping the news cycle, they are passing up on an opportunity.