RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina's attorney general plans to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to require lower emissions from coal-fired power plants in 13 other states.

Attorney General Roy Cooper told EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt on Friday that he will ask a judge to compel the agency to force the pollution controls at coal-fired power plants.

Cooper filed a petition in March under the federal Clean Air Act asking for the reductions, stating the emissions from other states drift into North Carolina, making it difficult to meet its pollution requirements.

The agency had replied that a new initiative, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, that may solve the pollution problem if given time by reducing smog and soot from smokestacks in the eastern United States by as much as two-thirds over the next 10 years. The EPA had until Thursday to respond further to the petition.

Cooper's spokeswoman, Noelle Talley, said the EPA didn't have the right to grant itself an extension. Cooper decided to go before a federal judge to try to compel the EPA to act.

"Every day our petition is delayed is a missed opportunity to make a real impact on pollution," Cooper said in a news release. "North Carolina has made strides in cleaning up our own air, but we know that dirty air doesn't stop at the state line. We will continue to take the necessary steps to protect North Carolinians from out-of-state air pollution."

If North Carolina ultimately gets its way, upwind power plants would have three years to make emissions reductions.

An EPA spokesman in Washington didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday.

The plants at issue are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Cooper said earlier this week he planned to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority over its pollution emissions.

Michael Shore, an air quality analyst with N.C. Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental group, said the proposed Clean Air regulation isn't final and doesn't go far enough to tackle power plant pollution.

Cooper contends the out-of-state polluters are making it difficult to meet the national air standards despite passage of North Carolina's Clean Smokestacks Act in 2002. The law required deeper emissions reductions than federal laws at the state's 14 largest coal-fired power plants.

Besides health issues, Cooper said the pollution affects the view in the mountains, where tourism is a $12 billion-a-year industry.

John Shipp, a TVA vice president, said Thursday that the publicly owned authority has made great gains in controlling pollution since the late 1970s. He said it will spend nearly $3 billion this decade to cut pollution further.