EPA Solid Waste Chief Announces Retirement

Date: February 22, 2010

Source: News Room

Matt Hale, EPA's top solid waste official, plans to retire effective March 31 after postponing his retirement several times in the past to work on the "many challenges" his agency faces in its Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) program. As director of EPA's Office of Resource Conservation & Recovery, Hale worked on the agency's high-profile, delayed proposal to issue first-time RCRA rules for the disposal of coal ash and other coal combustion byproducts. According to a letter he sent announcing his plans on Feb. 18, "This was a difficult decision for me, and it's one that I've postponed more than once, so that I could continue to work on the many challenges we face in the RCRA program. But the time is now right for me to move on to other things -- primarily to full-time retirement."

Last fall, he told the Environmental Council of the States that the agency is legally barred from using its existing RCRA authority under subtitle D solid waste rules to regulate coal waste because agency attorneys determined EPA would have no federal authority to enforce such requirements. A hazardous classification under RCRA subtitle C is the only way to give EPA its enforcement authority, Hale said, while noting he believed subtitle D solid waste rules would be sufficiently protective of safety and the environment. The rule is currently stalled at the White House Office of Management & Budget due to fierce opposition from industry, some states and others to the agency's preferred "hybrid" approach to declare some forms of the waste as hazardous under RCRA.

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