Pollutants blowing in from those coal-burning states dirty N.C. air, the petition says, and sap the effectiveness of legislators' crackdown on power plants in 2002. While that legislation became a national model, other states didn't follow suit.

With Thursday's filing, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper followed the act's directive to "use all available resources and means" to make other states do the same.

"We hope the EPA will take action, but we'd rather see the states take their own action," Cooper said at a Charlotte news conference.

"We'd love for other states to have Clean Smokestacks Acts."

It was only the second time since 1990 that such a petition has been filed with the EPA -- North Carolina was a target of the first one.

Amid this year's elections, the tactic is not likely to win North Carolina friends.

"Let's cut to the chase: this is an election-year stunt," said Trey Walker, a spokesman for S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, who had urged Cooper not to file the petition. "It seems like a fight is what they want, and a fight they shall have."

The two states have resolved their differences without litigation before, Walker said, most recently over N.C. water releases during the 2002 drought. The N.C. petition, if granted, would force pollution cutbacks that could chill S.C. economic development, Walker said.

Environmental groups praised Cooper's action.

"What I want people to feel is a source of pride that our attorney general has taken our health and our environmental risks seriously," said Lisa Renstrom, a leader of the Charlotte-area Sierra Club.

The petition asks for reductions in the pollutants that form fine particles, haze and ozone. The EPA says fine particles prematurely kill tens of thousands of people a year. Ozone is a respiratory irritant that increases asthma attacks in summer.

North Carolina's legislation attacked the same pollutants with requirements stiffer than the federal government's, eventually cutting sulfur dioxide by 74 percent and nitrogen oxide by 78 percent.

The petition names power plants in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Those plants, the petition says, significantly compromise North Carolina's ability to meet federal ozone and fine-particle standards. Mecklenburg is expected to struggle with both.

Other states were "primary contributors" on 39 percent of the high-particle days North Carolina experienced between 1999 and 2002, state air-quality officials say. The petition linked a decline in such days between 2000 and 2002 with a drop in sulfur-dioxide emissions in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

EPA has 60 days to respond. A spokesman said the agency had not yet reviewed the petition and had no comment Thursday.

The EPA in December offered a plan to reduce pollutants from power plants in 29 states, including the Carolinas, and the District of Columbia. The plan set targets of 70 percent reductions for sulfur dioxide and 65 percent for nitrogen oxides by 2015, although actual reductions are expected to be smaller.

N.C. officials say they would be satisfied if that plan becomes final. But they worry that a provision allowing utilities to trade interstate pollution credits -- allowing some plants to avoid extra pollution controls -- could undermine the state's air quality.

State officials described Thursday's petition as a backstop in case the EPA proposal is weakened by emissions trading or never enacted.

Cooper, who sent letters alerting the other states to the petition in December and again this month, said "we have seen some positive signs from a couple of states, but these are not assurances of reductions in emissions."

Virginia's Legislature is debating a bill similar to Clean Smokestacks, but it's not expected to be adopted this year. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, is spending $2 billion on pollution controls.

South Carolina's state-owned Santee Cooper power utility reached an agreement with the EPA this week under which it will spend $100 million on pollution controls. But the S.C. settlement doesn't reach the statewide reductions needed, Cooper said.

The TVA, whose power plants are frequently blamed for the smoky haze hanging over the N.C. mountains, says Tennessee has already cut power-plant pollutants more than North Carolina between 1995 and 2000.

"We certainly have been doing our part," said TVA vice president John Shipp. "We're hopeful these petitions will not hinder the cooperation among the states in the Southeast."

Eight Northeastern states filed similar petitions in 1997, naming North Carolina and other upwind states. The EPA granted petitions from four states, but also issued a broader call for 22 states including the Carolinas to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.