Republicans Consider Measures to Oppose Strict EPA Coal Ash Rule

Date: August 25, 2010

Source: News Room

Republicans in Congress are considering use of the Congressional Review Act to oppose EPA's pending coal combustion ash (CCA) rules that would designate it as a hazardous waste. EPA has extended until November public comment period on its proposal to regulate CCA under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) either under strict hazardous waste rules (Subtitle C) or less-stringent solid waste rules (Subtitle D). A similar maneuver was attempted but failed last June when Senate Republicans led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sought to use the CRA to disapprove EPA's final finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. However, EPA's coal ash proposal has drawn far more bipartisan opposition than the climate endangerment finding, particularly given fears of the economic impacts and the detrimental effect on the coal ash beneficial reuse industry.

A bipartisan majority of the House Energy & Commerce Committee sent a July 29 letter to EPA expressing "strong opposition" to regulating coal waste as hazardous under RCRA subtitle C. The 31 members signing the letter included Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI), oversight subcommittee chair, Rick Boucher (D-VA), technology subcommittee chairman, and Fred Upton (R-MI), ranking member of the environment subcommittee.

"We are additionally concerned about the potential unnecessary costs which would be imposed on electricity customers as a result of subtitle C regulation," the letter says. "Furthermore, the imposition of these regulations and subsequent costs may result in the closure of some coal-fired electricity generating units, and the inflexible nature of RCRA's hazardous waste requirements would result in regulation of virtually all aspects of power plant operations due to the de minimis emissions from the operations of the plant."

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