COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State Sen. Bob Hagan, D-Youngstown, recently introduced legislation that would require the owner or operator of an Ohio-based coal fired power plant to curb mercury emissions by 90% by December 2005. The proposal is modeled after similar legislation passed in Connecticut last year.Hagan's proposal seeks to counter industry efforts at the federal level to postpone mercury reductions into the distant future. The current federal proposal being touted by the electric industry and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeks instead to establish a "cap-and-trade" plan in which some polluting plants could continue to churn out enormously unsafe levels of mercury if they buy credits from other plants that had installed pollution controls.Environmental groups and many members of Congress have charged the proposal does little to protect the public health, is insufficient and not scientifically defensible, Hagan says. Under the Bush Administration¹s Clear Skies Initiative, the amount of mercury released in to the atmosphere would be three times greater than under the Clean Air Act, he maintains."Under the Clinton Administration's enforcement policies of the Clean Air Act, which were recently abandoned by the current U.S. EPA brass, we would have seen power plant mercury emission reductions of 90% in four years," Hagan says. "Instead we're stuck with an industry friendly 'cap-and-trade' and 70% reductions by 2018. To put off reducing emissions ofthis deadly toxin until 2018 is grossly negligent and absolutely inexcusable for a regulatory agency."Mercury is a highly toxic chemical that is emitted as a vapor when coal is burned and has been found to cause brain disorders in developing fetuses and young children. Coal fired power plants account for about 40% of the mercury emissions nationwide, Hagan says. Mercury is the most pervasive pollutant in the Great Lakes and all the state public health departments in the region have issued fish consumption advisories. Mercury, especially from coal-fired power plants, settles into lakes, rivers, and oceans and contaminates fish that humans then eat, he notes."