Utilities Claim EPA Lacks Authority For Ash Rule's Groundwater Mandates

摘要

Power companies are urging a federal appeals court to scale back or eliminate groundwater protection provisions in EPA's first-time Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) coal ash disposal rule, arguing the agency lacks authority for those requirements and for mandates on closed "legacy" ash sites and other facilities. The arguments against the rule's various provisions are outlined in a joint non-binding statement of issues filed by several utilities in consolidated litigation over the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Separate filings by environmentalists in contrast seek to expand regulation of legacy disposal sites that are no longer in use, while the ash reuse sector is faulting as too strict the threshold for regulating large "structural fills."