It may sound like good news that the Environmental Protection Agency is accepting more public comment on its seriously flawed rule to regulate mercury air emissions. It isn’t. The reconsideration process will simply delay legal challenges to the rule, giving utilities and industrial plants more time to install pollution control equipment.

Recently, the EPA announced it was going to revisit the mercury rule after receiving requests from 23 groups to do so. Maine was among the 14 states asking for reconsideration as was the Natural Resources Council of Maine and four Maine Indian tribes. Prevailing winds bring mercury pollution from the south and west into Maine. The groups have also filed a lawsuit challenging the rule in federal court. The announced reconsideration is somewhat unusual, the fact that it is so broad is unprecedented.

Sen. Susan Collins, a long opponent of the new rule, took the reconsideration as another sign that it was “deeply flawed.” “The rule is scientifically misguided, does not meet legal requirements of the Clean Air Act, and does not sufficiently protect the public from toxic mercury emissions,” she said. “This rule should be overturned.”

She’s right on all counts, but just because the EPA has asked for more comments, don’t expect the agency to change its mind.

The Senate had a chance to overturn the rule, but fell four votes short. Even then, there was little chance that President Bush would have signed onto the request to review the rule. The only recourse for opponents of the rule, which would delay by 10 years reductions in mercury pollution, is now the courts.

But even there, the Bush administration appears one step ahead of them. Because of the reconsideration move, the EPA has asked a judge to delay the lawsuit to allow time for further public comment. The judge is likely to grant the motion.

The new rules are already in effect and they negate a requirement under the Clean Air Act that power plants and other polluters reduce their mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2008. The cap-and-trade rules finalized by the EPA in March would result in a 70 percent reduction by 2018. While the rules are tied up in bureaucratic and legal limbo, major polluters have to do nothing to reduce their emissions.

Call it cynical but this gesture to allow more public comment is no service to the public.