Wired

The Obama administration’s efforts to reduce mercury pollution from coal plants has become one of its most contentious undertakings. But Minnesota’s regulatory officials are saying that they may have found the key -- one that has built consensus and that could become a national model.

Minnesota says that it has cut its mercury emissions by more than half since the state had mandated that utilities operating within its borders abide by its rules. In the mid 1990s, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says that mercury emissions from coal plants totaled 1,850 pounds per year. Today, they are about 870...