Cap and trade, though worth considering, has shown itself to be little more than another procurement of business over environment.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was right. President George W. Bush was wrong. At least, that’s what a federal circuit court ruled in regard to each official’s clean air standards for mercury.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out the Bush administration’s mercury-control plan. Three years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency established a ‘‘cap-and-trade’‘ policy to help control mercury emissions. This program allowed polluters, mainly coal-fired power plants, to avoid installing costly mercury control technology by purchasing pollution credits from lower-polluting plants. The plan envisioned reducing mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018.

However, the court found that the Bush administration policy, implemented in 2005, violated the Clean Air Act mercury-reduction rules established in 2000. Those rules set the goal of reducing mercury pollution by 90 percent.