MERCURY RISING

Oh, great.

The Bush administration is proposing that mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants should not be regulated in the same way as some of the most toxic air pollutants, reversing a stance on air pollution control taken by the Clinton administration in 2000.

The change in planned regulations for mercury emissions from power plants is summarized in documents from the Environmental Protection Agency and is the first big policy decision by Michael O. Leavitt, who took over as the agency's administrator last month.

The agency is suggesting that mercury emissions be removed from the most stringent regulations of the Clean Air Act that have been used to limit the most toxic air pollutants. Among those are asbestos, chromium and lead, which have been known to cause cancers and neurological disorders.

Because there is nothing so harmless as . . . mercury. But don't worry, there are market-based solutions for everything, right?