Despite President Barack Obama's renewed push to tackle climate change, many American politicians see a tougher stance against anti-pollution standards as a vote-winner in the race to replace him.

Even as confirmed that he thinks he is ready to run, Republican presidential hopeful Senator Marco Rubio rejected the scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change.

In doing so, he joined a broader conservative counterattack.

Republican lawmakers say Obama is using the threat of rising sea levels, stronger storms and increased wildfires as excuses to implement restrictions that would harm the American economy.

Last week, Obama touted the National Climate Assessment -- researched over four years by hundreds of scientists -- as a call to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow an "unambiguous" rise in temperatures.

With a sharply divided Congress unlikely to take up climate change legislation this year, Obama is forging ahead with steps on his own, such as tightening emissions standards for power plants.

Rubio takes the position held by many conservatives: that the global climate is inherently unstable and declares that it is a "lie" to suggest legislation would change the weather.

"I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," Rubio told ABC News Sunday.

"And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy."

Amid heated mid-term election campaigns, Obama's foes are challenging him on the economic merits of imposing burdensome restrictions on corporate America.

And, with many middle-of-the-road Republican incumbents forced to shift to the right amid pressure from the ultra-conservative Tea Party, denial of the human impact on climate change has gained traction.

A Pew Research Center poll last month showed 41 percent of Tea Party Republicans believed global warming is not happening, while 28 percent said there was not enough information.

In 2006, Pew found that 59 percent of Republicans said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures. By last fall that figure dropped to 50 percent.

Conservative candidates are seeking to capitalize on this rebellion.

Congressman Lamar Smith, chairman of the House science committee, branded the White House report "a political document intended to frighten Americans into believing that any abnormal weather we experience is the direct result of human CO2 emissions."

"In reality, there is little science to support any connection between climate change and more frequent or extreme storms."

Rubio, Smith and Senator Rand Paul, himself a likely presidential contender, are among Republican lawmakers actively denying scientific conclusions.

Others position themselves as softer climate change skeptics, while others, particularly in leadership positions, would prefer to stay out of the fray altogether.

"I'm not going to get into a debate over the science," House Speaker John Boehner said last week.

"It just strikes me that every proposal that Democrats have to deal with the issue of climate change would kill jobs in America."

Some stress that the world's biggest carbon emitter China -- the US is second -- must take up the slack. Washington and Beijing have failed to agree on new emissions limits as part of an international climate change treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

Some prominent Republicans, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and 2012 presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman, acknowledge that climate change is real and that humans play a role, and they bristle at their party's refusal to tackle the looming crisis.

"So obtuse has become the party's dialogue on climate change that it's now been reduced to believing or not believing, as if it were a religious mantra," Huntsman said in a New York Times column last week.

"If Republicans can get to a place where science drives our thinking and actions, then we will be able to make progress."