The pushback against environmental regulation grows, this time against new federal air pollution rules that would help Marylanders breathe easier, according to a state spokesman.

Attorneys general for 24 states (not including the Free State) plus the governor of Iowa have joined with the coal industry in asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to extend a Nov. 16 deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a rule requiring reductions in emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.  EPA is bound to act by that date under the terms of a consent decree approved by the court.

In asking the court for a year's delay, the states point to an industry-financed study saying that the mercury regulation along with another EPA rule clamping down on cross-state air pollution would increase electricity costs, eliminate jobs and could lead to power shortages.

Similar efforts to delay or block the EPA's power plant rules are being made in Congress, as some power plant operators have warned they'll shut down their coal burners rather than comply because they say it would be too expensive to put on the needed pollution controls.

But according to Jay Apperson, spokesman for the Maryland Department of the Environment, almost all the coal-fired power plants in the state, including all the largest ones, will comply with the federal rule other states are objecting to.  They've already been required to reduce mercury emissions on par with the federal rule under the state's Healthy Air Act, adopted in 2006 and signed by the governor then, Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

Maryland's law is "ahead of the curve," points out Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.  The state's law required an 80 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2010 and will ratchet up to requiring 90 percent reduction by 2013 - compared with a 91 percent curb by 2014 or 2015 under the federal rule. 

Indeed, the MDE spokesman says that the federal rule for mercury, as well as EPA's cross-state air pollution rule requiring reductions in smog-forming power plant emissions, "will begin to level the playing field" for Maryland power plants. 

That could be why Constellation Energy, which installed scrubbers on its Maryland coal plants to comply, supports the federal rule along with some other power companies, including Exelon, suitor to merge with Constellation. Critics of the EPA rule say those power companies that support it just don't have as many coal plants to upgrade.

Whatever the case, much of the mercury, smog and health-threatening fine-particle pollution in Maryland's air blows in here from out of state, Apperson notes.  Officials estimate that up to 70 percent of the ozone-forming emissions in Maryland's air, for instance, waft in from elsewhere.

Environmentalists have rallied to EPA's side, releasing a nationwide survey that found strong public support for the disputed air pollution rules.  Two-thirds, 67 percent, oppose any delay in the cross-state pollution rule, and 77 percent object to delaying the clampdown on toxic mercury, according to the poll. Nearly 90 percent of Democrats and even 58 percent of Republicans surveyed opposed congressional action to stop EPA from adopting the rules. 

(Pollution scrubber emits steam cloud at Constellation's Brandon Shores power plant south of Baltimore.  2010 Baltimore Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam)