Federal Court rules against EPA

The suit challenged the EPA’s regulation that permitted mercury emissions, much of it from midwest coal plants.

Maine and more than a dozen other states, along with environmental and public health groups, have won a federal lawsuit aimed at cutting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled today that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act in 2005 by setting rules that allow plants to discharge toxic mercury and avoid strict controls. The EPA’s “Clean Air Mercury Rule” would have created a cap-and-trade program to reduce overall nationwide emissions 70 percent by 2018.

– PressHerald