Missouri, other coal states in crosshairs of EPA mercury rule

The St. Louis Dispatch reports:

The Obama administration on Wednesday announced landmark new rules requiring power plants to sharply reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants.

The regulations, first proposed in March, were finalized last week by the Environmental Protection Agency under a court deadline, and have been subject to heavy lobbying and vigorous debate between the electric industry and environmental and public health advocates.

Utilities and their allies in Congress have complained the regulations are the costliest of several tough regulations already or soon to be imposed on coal-burning utilities and said the agency has underestimated both he difficulty of implementing it and the economic fallout that will occur as a result. States like Missouri, which gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal, will be especially hard hit, they say.

Can you say higher energy bills?