Despite new EPA rules that coddle polluters, the fight to curtail the amount of poisonous mercury that is released into the atmosphere isn’t over.

Last week, Sen. Susan Collins wrote a stinging letter to the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, calling into question his agency’s actions on mercury and seeking a face-to-face meeting.

Now, this week, Sen. Olympia Snowe said that she would reintroduce, along with Sen. Patrick Leahy, legislation that would dramatically reduce mercury pollution.

But this multiple-front war doesn’t stop in the U.S. Senate. Assistant Attorney General Jerry Reid rallied with Rep. Tom Allen and environmentalists to announce that Maine is joining with at least eight other states in a lawsuit against the EPA in an attempt to force tighter regulations.

“EPA’s new rule on mercury emissions is woefully inadequate and profoundly disappointing,” Snowe said in a prepared statement.

Mercury is a known toxin that poses significant risk to the development of fetuses and young children. It is carried into Maine from coal-burning power producers in the Midwest, which are content to send poison our way.

The EPA has mismanaged its own procedures for making rules, has ignored evidence contrary to its politically derived, predetermined outcomes and has unnecessarily put people’s health at stake.

The EPA has turned its back on cleaner air and forced a fight in Congress and the courts. Better rules with significant mercury reductions are the only acceptable outcome.