A pair of senators introduced legislation Friday to change the federal government’s coal ash disposal standards in a way that they say would provide more certainty to utilities.
The bill from Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is similar to legislation that the House is planning to vote on next week, after the Energy and Commerce Committee passed it earlier this year.
{mosads}Hoeven and Manchin say their bill would retain the health and environmental standards in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) December rule regulating the disposal and storage of coal ash, a waste product from coal-fired power generation that contains substances like arsenic, mercury and chromium.
“Coal ash is a byproduct of coal-based electricity generation that has been safely recycled for buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure for years,” Hoeven said in a statement.
“The overregulation of coal ash by the EPA would threaten vital industries and needlessly cost West Virginia and the nation more jobs, neither of which we can afford,” Manchin said. “This legislation gives us a commonsense fix: let each state use existing EPA health and environment regulations to set up their own permitting program that allows them to recycle and reuse coal ash.”
The EPA declared in December that coal ash is not hazardous under federal law, avoiding costly disposal rules.
But the EPA cannot enforce its own rule, nor force states to enforce it. Instead, only lawsuits from citizens can hold utilities accountable.
The Senate bill, similarly to the House one, would require states to adopt the federal standards or let the EPA enforce them itself, a proposal that has gained the support of utilities and others who want to avoid dealing with lawsuits.
But it would also delay enforcement of some of the provisions, and it would prevent the EPA from eventually declaring coal ash to be hazardous, aspects that have angered environmentalists.