Md. to Restrict Coal-Burning Power Plants

Fifteen states and Baltimore are suing the EPA, pushing for stricter controls on mercury. Virginia is not a party to the lawsuit over mercury rules. Rules on nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions for Virginia "are a work in progress," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington-based watchdog group.

O'Donnell said Ehrlich's proposal "ignores the whole question of carbon dioxide from power plants, which is essentially protecting the power industry from doing its share to deal with global warming, and aligns this plan completely with the Bush Administration on that point."

Maryland Democrats suggested that Ehrlich chose to enact his plan through executive regulations, rather than do battle with the Democrat-controlled legislature over new pollution limits.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said lawmakers retain the authority to review the governor's plan or render it irrelevant by passing their own proposal.

"Can we make something good out of this? Absolutely," Miller said. "We can widen it, we can enhance it, we can put it into statute."

Miller said Ehrlich also may have inadvertently breathed new life into legislation that would seek a 90 percent mercury reduction far earlier than 2018, the deadline in Ehrlich's plan, as well as significant carbon dioxide emission restrictions, which go unaddressed in the plan.

But Sen. Sandra B. Schrader (R-Howard) said she does not believe that legislation will be needed.

"By coming out and stepping forward now, he has preempted their argument," she said.