EPA Floats Plan to Speed Up its Dismantling of Coal Ash Protections

The Trump administration published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on a permitting scheme that would result in more coal ash pollution. EPA did not issue any new regulations at this stage but is accepting comments on its revealing and concerning announcement.

The scheme would speed up the implementation of EPA’s efforts to gut coal ash protections. EPA is floating the idea of letting coal power plants essentially permit themselves and take advantage of the grossly weakened provisions of its proposed coal ash rule, which the agency is currently finalizing. This would allow polluters to set their own cleanup requirements, and self-imposed requirements that would likely be in place for years before any independent agency evaluated them.

It is likely that all plants nationwide would also be able to take advantage of these “general permits” to avoid the delays of federally or state-issued permits. 

For example, if the scheme were to be implemented, a plant in Georgia that is now prohibited from closing a dump site with ash in groundwater could decide that leaving their ash to contaminate groundwater is okay, based only on their own self-serving analyses. Similarly, the plant could weaken groundwater protection standards for lead, lithium, molybdenum, and cobalt without any agency approval and again based on their own self-serving analyses.

“The Trump administration is putting the coal power industry’s interests before what’s best for the public. This would allow known polluters to decide that their pollution is okay. It is an outrageous scheme that would threaten our sources of drinking water and the environment,” said Gavin Kearney, deputy managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Clean Energy Program.