RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Past and potential Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says President Barack Obama has a "quasi-religious" zeal to close down coal-burning power plants The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania was in Raleigh Thursday to speak to conservative groups and dropped by the N.C. General Assembly for an impromptu speech. Santorum criticized the Obama administration's first-ever regulations aimed at reducing power plant emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. The U.S.