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Ohio regulators are telling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that new federal goals for reducing mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from power plants are unachievable, costly and scientifically flawed.

 

On Monday's comment deadline, environmental groups differed. They lined up to praise the Obama administration's proposed regulations for certain pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Roughly a third of tall smokestacks of coal-fired plants are concentrated in five states along the Ohio River Valley.

 

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency told its federal counterpart that a 6-percent increase in efficiency at existing power plants isn't possible, and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio estimated meeting the new rules would cost ratepayers an extra $2.5 billion.