WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court struck down a Bush administration policy allowing some power plants to exceed mercury emission levels, ruling Friday that the government failed to consider the effect on public health and the environment.

The court’s rebuke of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was cheered by both Maine officials and environmental organizations that were party to a nationwide effort to scrap the controversial mercury rule.

“The simple truth is the EPA’s approach failed to reflect the severity of the situation and would have inevitably failed to protect either the health of our children or Maine’s natural resources and the economies that depend on them,” Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement.

“The court’s ruling that the EPA’s mercury rule was improperly crafted and ignored federal law is a welcome judgment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “The agency’s flawed rule had excluded major sources of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants until 2018, despite clear evidence that cost-effective mercury control technologies are available.”

The office of Democratic Rep. Tom Allen of Maine’s 1st District issued a statement that said in part: “Maine has some of the most stringent regulations of mercury emissions in the nation. This ruling recognizes that the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to impose regulations on utility company practices in the Midwest and South to curb their emissions that cause mercury pollution nationwide.”

More than a dozen states sued to block the regulation, saying it would allow dangerous levels of mercury into the environment. The toxic metal is known to contaminate seafood and can damage the developing brains of fetuses and young children.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit negated a rule known as cap-and-trade. That policy allows power plants that fail to meet emission targets to buy credits from plants that did rather than having to install their own mercury emissions controls. The rule was to go into effect in 2010.

“This three-judge panel has done the world a favor and helped save lives,” said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, one of many attorneys general who joined a lawsuit originally brought by New Jersey.

The three-judge court unanimously struck down the cap-and-trade policy and the EPA’s plan to exempt coal- and oil-fired power plants from regulations requiring strict emissions control technology to block emissions. Before instituting the new regulation, the court held, the government was required to show that emissions from any power plant would not harm the environment or “exceed a level which is adequate to protect public health with an ample margin of safety.”

The EPA argued it was not required to follow that rule, a stance the court held was “not persuasive.”

Snowe called allowing power plants to purchase their way out of compliance “lunacy” and repeated her calls for a uniform national standard.

The agency defended the rule, saying it represented the nation’s first attempt to control such emissions and that it would reduce mercury emissions by 70 percent.

“Keep in mind, the U.S. now has no national mercury emissions regulation for these plants,” EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said, adding that the EPA would consider whether the cap-and-trade policy could be resurrected under a different regulation. “It’s good for America and it’s good for the environment. We want to be a global leader on this issue,” he said.

Industry organizations strongly supported the plan.

“The court’s decision represents a major setback for federal efforts to establish clear mercury regulations for coal-fired power plants,” said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, an association of power companies. “Now EPA has to go back to the drawing board, pushing mercury regulations far off into the future.”

Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 60,000 newborns a year could be at risk of learning disabilities because of mercury their mothers absorbed during pregnancy. About 8 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age have enough mercury in their blood to cause concern for a future pregnancy.

Maine was among the states that argued that the cap-and-trade system would endanger children near some power plants that pollute but use credits to do it legally.

In a statement, Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe said the courts “have rejected a Bush administration attempt to put the profits of corporate polluters above the health of the American people.”

“It is especially disturbing to me that the EPA, the federal agency responsible for protecting the environment, would actively look for ways to avoid its legal obligation to address this most serious environmental threat,” Rowe said. “The unanimous decision by the D.C. Circuit Court means that the EPA is going to have to regulate the emission of toxins in a real and meaningful way, just as Congress required in the Clean Air Act.”

Several Maine environmental groups that joined the legal fight against the mercury rule also praised the court action.

“Today’s court decision means that dirty old coal plants will have to clean up their act and stop spewing so much mercury pollution,” Matt Prindiville of the Natural Resources Council of Maine said in a statement. “This is good news for every family in America and wildlife including loons, fish and eagles. It means that someday our kids will be able to eat the fish they catch from our lakes and rivers.”

The states involved in the lawsuit were California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

BDN staff writer Kevin Miller contributed to this report.