Ehrlich targets cutting emissions from six power plants

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. today proposed regulations that would drastically reduce emissions from six coal-fired power plants -- including two in Anne Arundel County.

Mr. Ehrlich's Maryland Clean Power Rule, unveiled at a news conference in Bethesda, would require billions of dollars in improvements to curb nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions by 2010.

Those pollutants are three of the so-called "four pollutants" environmental groups targeted with failed legislation the past several years.

Nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide contribute to summertime ground-level ozone, while mercury is a neurotoxin that...