Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have introduced legislation to guarantee state administration of coal ash, a substance recently determined to be non-hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We look at this as not only a win in providing regulatory certainty so that industry can continue to produce more energy, but also we think that same investment will produce better environmental stewardship,” Hoeven told the Washington Examiner.
At the core of the Hoeven-Manchin proposal, the Updated Coal Ash Recycling Legislation, is a December 2014 EPA ruling finding coal ash, one of the remains from coal burning, to be “nonhazardous.”
The push and pull between economic prerogatives and environmental oversight in this arena is intense. Decisions over how coal ash is recycled, and who oversees that process, can mean more or fewer jobs from one perspective, or dangers to public and environmental health from another. As North Dakota enters another frigid Great Plains winter, it can even mean the price of heating one’s home.
Hoeven, Manchin and their allies hope to avoid ceding significant control over oversight of coal ash recycling to the federal government. From their perspective, seemingly small regulations have large ripple effects, damaging productivity and industry.
Manchin, Hoeven and supporters of the legislation thus support giving coal ash regulatory power permanently to the states, but with final EPA say-so. The final EPA sign-off is an overture to Senate Democrats and the administration to gather bipartisan support for the legislation.
“It’s similar to how many other types of energy regulation is done,” Hoeven said.
“We’ve been working on this for a while. It’s bipartisan,” Hoeven said, citing Manchin’s support. “We’ve worked with the EPA, because we’re trying to come up with something that can get bipartisan support to pass.”
“[This legislation] is also about recycling. We just think it’s the kind of thing that should be a way to bring people together and get it done,” Hoeven continued.
The Examiner asked Hoeven if the EPA would be willing to formally endorse the plan, and Hoeven said he expected it to stop short of going that far, but potentially not get too much in the way.
“We have received pushback, which is why we have worked with the EPA to come up with this framework,” Hoeven said. “We’ve gone the extra mile on this.”
“They won’t come out and officially endorse it, but I think the EPA recognizes that we’ve covered the bases here.”
Hoeven strikes a tone with the agency that is more partnership-oriented than many of the EPA’s more strident critics.
Sen. Manchin for his part is generally considered to be the most conservative, or at least most independent-minded, Democratic senator, from red-leaning West Virginia. The state has coal interests, like much of the Appalachian region. Hoeven was confident he could get full or close to full Senate Republican support and secure passage in the House, but was unprepared to guarantee a filibuster-proof 60-vote count, or a veto-proof 67-vote count.
Coal-related legislation is often championed by members from Appalachia, famous for coal economies. Sen. Manchin is from such a state. North Dakota’s involvement in coal is less famous than West Virginia’s, but nonetheless of importance to the state.
North Dakota had 6 percent of the nation’s recoverable coal reserves at producing mines as of 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Though secondary to the state’s robust hydraulic fracturing industry, coal is still significant to its economy as well as infrastructure, helping to power and heat much of the state.
Critics of the leglislation might point out that it is lauded by Sen. Jim Inhofe, a climate change skeptic.
For Hoeven, however, the alternative is a flood of litigation.
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s final coal ash rule … correctly regulates coal ash as a non-hazardous material, but this regulation does not create an effective enforcement mechanism for the disposal of coal ash as it relies on citizen-suit litigation to enforce coal ash disposal standards,” a January release from Hoeven’s office reads.
