HoustonChronicle.com - Plan to cut mercury puts focus on Texas

"'It's really a shame for us here because we have the highest concentrations of mercury emitted in the state,' said Longview native Tammy Campbell, director of WE CAN, or Working Effectively for Clean Air Now. Campbell has lived 43 years in the vicinity of some of Texas' biggest power plants, including TXU's Monticello plant, which emits the most mercury in the state.

'You don't think your air would be polluted out here in rural America,' she said.

The proposed rules closely resemble legislation drafted by the Bush administration and lobbied for heavily by industry that would have slashed three power plant pollutants using free markets.

The so-called Clear Skies Initiative also would have established a cap-and-trade program for mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxides, but it remains stalled in Congress. "

Mercury is a big problem along the Texas Gulf Coast and the bulk of the problem seems to date to very lax regulation during the Bush governorship.

Quit interesting to see that even the Chronicle points out the irony of the Clean Air Initiative<