E.P.A. to Consider Relaxing an Air Pollution Rule The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Friday afternoon that it would review its new standards for mercury, soot and other emissions for a handful of proposed new coal-burning power plants. The review will delay the implementation of the regulation for the new plants for at least three months while experts determine whether the emissions limits may safely be relaxed. The agency said the action was a "routine" reconsideration of technical standards based on new information received after the adoption of the so-called mercury rule late last year. The review will affect five planned power plants in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Utah. Mercury and other pollutants spewed by coal- and oil-burning power plants have been tied to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses, particularly in children. Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administration, has said that the rule - the government's first move to attack airborne mercury emissions - will save thousands of lives a year. The new air pollution standards were strongly opposed by utilities, which said that compliance would be technically difficult and prohibitively expensive. Utilities and industry groups have continued to complain about the rule, citing it as an example of the Obama administration's overzealous approach to business and environmental regulation. But the E.P.A. said the health and air quality benefits from the rule vastly exceeded the $9.6 billion annual cost, while signaling that it would show some flexibility in enforcing the new rule. "E.P.A. will review monitoring issues related to the mercury standards for new power plants and will address other technical issues on the acid gas and particle pollution standards for these plants," the agency said in a press release. The agency's review will not change the types of state-of-the-art pollution controls new power plants are expected to use to reduce this harmful pollution. Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group of utilities that had asked the E.P.A. to reconsider the rule, said the agency's announcement was "an important admission of flaws" in the rule and would be welcomed by the affected power companies. He argued that the mercury level was set so low that current monitoring equipment could not measure it and that the agency had adopted unrealistic limits for other emissions based on a small number of state-of-the-art plants.