Mercury pollution toxic

Kansas City Star: The Environmental Protection Agency asserts that it is working to reduce poisonous mercury in the environment. But Americans are getting a lot of political rhetoric, not results, from the Bush administration.
Every year tons of toxic mercury emissions are spewed into the air from power plants, the largest manmade source of mercury pollution. The emissions sometimes travel for miles, and eventually the mercury ends up in fish that humans consume.
The substance is particularly dangerous to children and pregnant women. The government estimates that one in 12 women of child-bearing age has an unsafe level of mercury in her blood. Americans are being warned to limit consumption of tuna.
Despite all this, the EPA's proposals to regulate this harmful pollution have been entirely inadequate. The agency's orders come from a pro-industry White House, which has shunted aside environmental experts and endorsed proposals that appear to have been written by the polluters.
Complaints
The EPA is sticking with its plan for regulating mercury emissions despite complaints by health experts, environmental groups and Democrats in Congress that the proposal undermines the Clean Air Act.
The plan would allow power plants to trade pollution "credits." Plants with a relatively clean record could sell their credits to mercury-spewing facilities, which could keep right on polluting.
The plan abandons a proposal by the Clinton administration to stop 90 percent of the nation's mercury emissions by 2008.