States sue EPA over mercury regulations

It was inevitable that several states would sue the Environmental Protection Agency over recently released rules that allow power plants to trade mercury emission credits. Here's why:

"EPA's emissions trading plan will allow some power plants to actually increase mercury emissions, creating hot spots of mercury deposition and threatening communities," said Attorney General Peter Harvey of New Jersey, lead plaintiff in the case....

The program starts in 2010. Until then, utilities do not have to do anything specifically to control mercury....

The lawsuit challenges the deadline given to power plants for compliance, and assails the EPA for exempting power plants from having to install the strictest emissions control technology available. That technology would cut mercury pollution by 90 percent, according to the New Jersey attorney general's office.

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