U.S. Court Rejects Effort to Block Rules on Mercury Pollution

An effort by environmental groups to block the President George W. Bush’s administration from implementing its new regulations on mercury pollution power plants was rejected by a federal appeals court.

Without comment, Judges David Sentelle and Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a motion for an immediate halt to the regulations, adopted in March by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The new rules set a nationwide cap on mercury emissions from about 600 coal-burning power plants and puts a ceiling on allowable pollution for each state beginning in 2010. Individual plants, however, can avoid cleanups by buying pollution allowances from plants well under allowable limits.

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