EPA is ordered to release documents on mercury rule

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | April 14, 2006

A federal magistrate in Boston ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency late yesterday to release internal documents to Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly about how the federal agency arrived at a controversial rule to regulate mercury emissions from power plants.

Reilly sued the EPA in March 2005 after the EPA refused to release all the information Reilly requested about alternatives the agency considered before coming up with its mercury emissions trading program. Reilly believes the EPA dismissed more effective alternatives.