Three years ago today, an earthen wall holding back a giant coal ash impoundment failed in Kingston, Tennessee, sending more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry over nearby land and into the Emory River. The ash had chemicals including arsenic, lead, and mercury. Clean up costs could be as much as $1.2 billion.
Public policy progress often comes in the wake of disasters. But three years after Kingston, it very much remains to be seen whether that disaster will at least lead to the needed regulations to stop the next one. Can EPA get the train back on the track? I hope so.
EPA had pledged that it would publish a proposed rule on coal ash by the end of 2009. But because OMB all but hijacked the process, the proposed rule didn't come until May 2010, and it was actually multiple proposals, not one, adding unnecessary complexity to EPA’s task of producing a draft final rule.
Okay, I lifted those first three paragraphs from my post on the Kingston anniversary last year, changing the “two years” to three. The sad truth is, not all that much has changed on the coal ash front in the last year.
Perhaps the biggest headlines on the issue came in October, when 267 members of the U.S. House voted for a bill that would stop the needed strong regulation. The Senate companion bill has at least three Democratic supporters, but the White House has stated its opposition, though not including the standard veto threat language.
The House bill’s advocates touted their vote as a victory against an Administration that was regulating out of control. But the reality is these Representatives were late to their game: EPA’s “strong” regulation had already been stymied by President Obama’s own OMB (see my post last year for a rundown on the history). Without overly belittling the significance of the House vote, let’s not forget our history here.
Certainly a permanent prohibition on strong coal ash regulation would not be good. The bigger picture, though, is that it’s unclear if or when such a regulation is going to happen. Not until after the 2012 election, the Administration has effectively said. And by publicly embracing the flawed notion that strong coal ash regulation might have hundreds of billions of dollars of negative effects on the reuse industry through the “stigma effect,” the Administration made its future job harder if it gets another four years and wants to one day get this one right.
The public may or may not yet win this one, but victory is not likely near.
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Ben Somberg | December 22, 2011
Three years ago today, an earthen wall holding back a giant coal ash impoundment failed in Kingston, Tennessee, sending more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry over nearby land and into the Emory River. The ash had chemicals including arsenic, lead, and mercury. Clean up costs could be as much as $1.2 billion. […]
Yee Huang | December 21, 2011
Whoever accused the EPA of running amok is surely chagrined by the news last week that the agency is behind (again) on another important rule, this one to regulate the stormwater that pollutes many waterbodies across the United States. Nancy Stoner, EPA’s Acting Assistant Administrator for Water, told a House Subcommittee last week that the […]
Catherine O'Neill | December 21, 2011
It was October 1990, George H.W. Bush was President, and the vote wasn’t close in either chamber: Congress overwhelmingly passed the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, including provisions requiring EPA to reduce mercury emissions from major sources such as power plants. Today the EPA at long last released its rule regulating mercury emissions from coal-fired […]
Matt Shudtz | December 20, 2011
The environmental community breathed a small sigh of relief last week when congressional negotiators released a spending bill without policy riders that would have prevented EPA from advancing rules on greenhouse gases, endangered species, and coal ash. One rider that was included will slow EPA’s efforts to assess toxic chemicals’ potential health effects under the […]
Rena Steinzor | December 15, 2011
The Obama Administration is sending mixed messages. On the one hand, several top economic officials have noted the extensive evidence that a lack of demand, rather than regulation, is the cause of a slow economic recovery and low job creation. Yet the President himself has contradicted his economic advisers on the issue in a misguided […]
Dan Rohlf | December 13, 2011
A draft policy released for comment last week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service took on the challenging question of defining the circumstances under which only a portion of an ailing species may be eligible for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, the Services’ proposal continued the […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | December 7, 2011
On Tuesday, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced the Bipartisan Jobs Creation Act, legislation that offers a number of proposals for jump-starting the economy. The bill includes two provisions that would hobble the regulatory system without generating the new jobs that the Senators seek. If these provisions were enacted, the bill would […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | December 7, 2011
Within the last hour, the House of Representatives approved the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act – the REINS Act. The bill was among House Republicans’ top priorities for the year, and they’ve made it and a series of other anti-regulatory bills a centerpiece of their agenda. The plain purpose of the […]
Isaac Shapiro | December 7, 2011
Cross-posted from the Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics blog. Isaac Shapiro is EPI’s Director of Regulatory Policy Research. The House of Representatives is poised to vote for the REINS (Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) bill today; this would come on top of votes on two bills last week that would also upend […]