TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – New Jersey Attorney General Zulima Farber filed a petition in federal court Monday on behalf of 16 states, including Maine, challenging the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury pollution rules.

The petition asks a federal judge to reactivate a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of the states challenging a rule known as “cap-and-trade.” That rule allows power plants to buy emissions reduction credits from plants whose emissions fall below target levels, rather than installing their own mercury emissions controls. It’s scheduled to go into effect in 2010.

The lawsuit was put on hold in October after the EPA agreed to reconsider the rules. On May 31, the agency announced revisions, but none dealt with cap-and-trade.

A message left Monday by The Associated Press at the EPA’s Washington office was not immediately returned.

“After six months of stalling, EPA not only failed to address the grave dangers posed to communities and children by its cap-and-trade program for mercury emissions, it made the program worse by further weakening standards,” Farber said in a statement.

The petition was filed in federal court in Washington.

“The lack of action at the federal level threatens to undermine the tough regulatory action New Jersey has taken to reduce in-state mercury emissions and protect the health of our residents,” said New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson.

Mercury from smokestacks can enter waterways and be consumed by humans who eat contaminated fish. The toxic metal can cause nerve damage and damage the heart, brain and kidneys, according to the EPA.

The lawsuit also challenges an EPA decision to delist coal- and oil-fired power plants from regulations requiring utilities to use the strictest emissions control technology possible to block emissions.

Other states included on the petition are: Wisconsin, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The states argue that the cap-and-trade system will endanger children near some power plants that pollute but use credits to do it legally.

The agency has defended its mercury rules in the past, saying they will reduce mercury emissions by 70 percent and they represent the nation’s first attempt to control such emissions.

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