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Cleveland
Plain Dealer
House
of Representatives votes to
keep ashes from coal-fired power plants from designation as hazardous
waste
By Sabrina Eaton
July 25, 2013
Hundreds
of coal miners and their
families wait in line to attend a rally Aug. 14 at the Century Mine
near
Beallsville, Ohio.
Associated
Press
The
House of Representatives on
Thursday adopted legislation that would give states greater control
over the
management of coal ash, a coal combustion byproduct that poses
environmental
threats when put in landfills, but is also commonly recycled for use in
cement,
concrete and other products.
While
some Democrats saw the
measure as yet another attempt by the Republican majority to strip the
Environmental Protection Agency of authority, the bill passed by a 265
to 155
margin, with support from 39 Democrats, including all four of Ohio's
Democratic
representatives.
All
of Ohio's Republicans voted for
the bill, too, except for House Speaker John Boehner who seldom votes.
Instead,
he put out a press release that said the bill would protect and create
jobs.
Many of the state's power plants produce coal-ash as a byproduct.
Wadsworth
Republican Rep. Jim
Renacci, who cosponsored the measure, said an EPA proposal to designate
coal
ash as a "hazardous material" is without scientific basis. He called
it "another thinly veiled attempt to force the coal industry out of
business."
"This
proposal is estimated to
cost energy companies as much as $110 billion over the next 20 years,
putting
over 300,000 jobs at risk as companies would be forced to lay off
workers to
meet the new compliance costs," Renacci said in a press statement.
Focus
on regulating coal ash
increased after the 2008 failure of a Tennessee coal ash storage area
contaminated local waterways, requiring a cleanup that's estimated to
cost more
than $1 billion. The disaster prompted the EPA to propose a rule that
would
treat coal ash in landfills and other storage areas as hazardous
material.
The
EPA has yet to finalize the
rule, and the House bill would stop the agency from imposing the
hazardous
material designation. It would give the federal government authority to
provide
minimum standards for the management of coal ash but leave it to the
states to
develop permit programs…
Read
the rest of the article at the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
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