WASHINGTON

EPA ORDERS POWER PLANT MERCURY EMISSIONS CUT BY NEARLY 50%

The Bush administration yesterday ordered power plants to cut mercury pollution from smokestacks by nearly half within 15 years but left an out for the worst polluters.

The Environmental Protection Agency said the cuts would help protect pregnant women, women of childbearing age, and young children from a toxic metal that causes nerve damage. Critics said the arrangement fell far short of what was needed, and they promised to fight it.

The nation’s 600 coal-burning power plants release 48 tons of mercury pollution a year. That is expected to decrease to 31.3 tons in 2010, 27.9 tons in 2015, and 24.3 tons in 2020.

Forty percent of mercury emissions come from power plants, but those emissions have never been regulated as a pollutant. EPA regulates mercury in water and from municipal waste and medical waste incinerators.

EPA faced immediate political and legal opposition.

Critics said EPA favored industry by setting a nationwide cap on allowable emissions and then allocating a specific amount to each state – and, in a few cases, Indian tribes that own power plants. The states then set limits on specific plants. Those that exceed the limit could buy pollution “credits” from plants emitting less mercury than they’re allowed. The cap-and-trade approach kicks in at 2010.

– Associated Press

DeLAY BLAMES PARTISANSHIP FOR UPROAR REGARDING OVERSEAS TRAVEL

A defiant House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blamed partisanship and innuendo yesterday for the uproar surrounding his overseas travel, but Republicans reported stirrings of concern over his political durability.

“We want to work with the ethics committee to prove how baseless these and other allegations are,” said Mr. DeLay, referring to trips to England in 2000 and South Korea in 2001 that were paid for by outside groups.

In a letter to the panel’s leaders, he and two other Republican lawmakers who took the Korean trip – Reps. Ander Crenshaw and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida – wrote that they would be “happy to discuss this matter with you at your convenience.”

Mr. DeLay laid some of the brouhaha over the travel at the feet of House Democrats, whom he said are seeking to “tear down the House and burn it down in order to gain power.”

Mr. DeLay has been at the center of troubles before, most recently last fall when the ethics committee admonished him for his conduct in connection with two separate cases.

He easily won a new term as leader subsequent to the committee’s actions, but several fellow Republicans said yesterday that the fresh controversy was beginning to exact a price.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

COURTHOUSE SHOOTING SUSPECT APPEARS BEFORE JUDGE

ATLANTA – Ringed by 19 officers in a cinderblock jail room, his hands and ankles shackled, the man accused in the crime spree that left an Atlanta judge and three others dead went before a judge yesterday for the first time since the rampage. Brian Nichols, 33, was informed that authorities plan to charge him with murder.

Mr. Nichols was held without bail on the rape charge he was on trial for Friday, when he allegedly overpowered a guard at the Fulton County courthouse, stole her gun, and started a rampage that terrorized Atlanta and left four people dead.

This time, authorities took no chances for the hearing at the Fulton County Jail. Nineteen officers – almost five times the usual number – packed the small room, and several more officers blocked the hall outside. Those entering the hearing room were searched with a handheld metal detector.

Prosecutor Michele McCutcheon informed Judge Cox that the state will pursue four charges of murder against Mr. Nichols.

– Associated Press