[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A DECADE LATER: A REVIEW OF CONGRESSIONAL
ACTION, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGEN-
CY RULES, AND BENEFICIAL USE OPPORTUNI-
TIES FOR COAL ASH
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 26 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-30
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-397 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
Chairman
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia Ranking Member
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia DORIS O. MATSUI, California
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama KATHY CASTOR, Florida
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
DAN CRENSHAW, Texas YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania, Vice RAUL RUIZ, California
Chairman SCOTT H. PETERS, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
RUSS FULCHER, Idaho NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas DARREN SOTO, Florida
DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee KIM SCHRIER, Washington
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
KAT CAMMACK, Florida LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
JAY OBERNOLTE, California ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York
JOHN JAMES, Michigan JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon TROY A. CARTER, Louisiana
ERIN HOUCHIN, Indiana ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina KEVIN MULLIN, California
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York JENNIFER L. McCLELLAN, Virginia
THOMAS H. KEAN, Jr., New Jersey
MICHAEL A. RULLI, Ohio
GABE EVANS, Colorado
CRAIG A. GOLDMAN, Texas
JULIE FEDORCHAK, North Dakota
------
Professional Staff
MEGAN JACKSON, Staff Director
SOPHIE KHANAHMADI, Deputy Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Environment
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
Chairman
DAN CRENSHAW, Texas, Vice Chairman PAUL TONKO, New York
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio Ranking Member
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama RAUL RUIZ, California
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania SCOTT H. PETERS, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas DARREN SOTO, Florida
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida TROY A. CARTER, Louisiana
NICHOLAS A. LANGWORTHY, New York ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
GABE EVANS, Colorado GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
JULIE FEDORCHAK, North Dakota FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky (ex officio)
officio)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. H. Morgan Griffith, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement.................... 1
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Paul Tonko, a Representative in Congress from the State of
New York, opening statement.................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hon. Brett Guthrie, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, opening statement.................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 12
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Witnesses
Michelle Freeark, Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs and
Corporate Services, Arizona Electric Power Cooperative......... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Answers to submitted questions............................... 114
L. David Glatt, Director, North Dakota Department of
Environmental Quality.......................................... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Answers to submitted questions............................... 117
Lisa Evans, Senior Counsel, Earthjustice......................... 33
Prepared statement \1\
Answers to submitted questions............................... 118
Thomas H. Adams, Executive Director, American Coal Ash
Association.................................................... 34
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Answers to submitted questions............................... 126
Submitted Material
Inclusion of the following was approved by unanimous consent.
List of documents submitted for the record....................... 81
Letter of June 26, 2025, from Sean O'Neill, Senior Vice
President, Government Affairs, American Cement Association, to
Mr. Guthrie, et al............................................. 82
Statement of James Kenney, Cabinet Secretary, New Mexico
Environment Department, and President, Enviromental Council of
the States, before the , Subcommittee on Interior, Environment,
and Related Agencies, House Committee on Appropriations........ 85
Article of June 16, 2025, ``North Dakota DEQ Chief Eager To Work
With EPA Amid Budget Cut Worry,'' InsideEPA.com................ 89
Article of June 19, 2025, ``'It's American ingenuity': TVA
transforms McCracken coal ash site into innovative solar
farm,'' by Carly Dick, Paducah Sun............................. 92
Fact sheet, ``Burden vs. Benefit: Optimizing CCR Regulation to
Unleash American Energy,'' Tennessee Authority, April 2025..... 95
Fact sheet, ``TVA Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for
Beneficiation Facilities,'' Tennessee Valley Authority, April
2025........................................................... 97
----------
\1\ Ms. Evans' statement has been retained in committee files and is
available at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF18/20250626/118432/
HHRG-119-IF18-Wstate-EvansL-20250626.pdf.
Article of June 19, 2025, ``How Black Lung Came Roaring Back to
Coal Country,'' by Kate Morgan, New York Times................. 99
Report of the Environmental Protection Agency, ``Risk Assessment
of Coal Combustion Residuals: Legacy Impoundments and CCR
Management Units,'' April 2024 \2\
Fact sheet, ``Radioactive Wastes From Coal-fired Power Plants,''
Environmental Protection Agency, June 24, 2025................. 107
Letter of June 26, 2025, from Desmarie Waterhouse, Senior Vice
President of Advocacy and Communications & General Counsel,
American Public Power Association, to Mr. Guthrie, et al....... 112
----------
\2\ The report has been retained in committee files and is included in
the Documents for the Record at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/
IF18/20250626/118432/HHRG-119-IF18-20250626-SD767.pdf.
A DECADE LATER: A REVIEW OF CONGRESSIONAL ACTION, ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY RULES, AND BENEFICIAL USE OPPORTUNITIES FOR COAL ASH
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:15 a.m., in
room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. H. Morgan
Griffith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Griffith, Crenshaw, Latta,
Carter of Georgia, Palmer, Joyce, Weber, Pfluger, Miller-Meeks,
Evans, Guthrie (ex officio), Tonko (subcommittee ranking
member), Ruiz, Peters, Barragan, Soto, Auchincloss, Carter of
Louisiana, Menendez, Landsman, and Pallone (ex officio).
Staff present: Ansley Boylan, Director of Operations; Byron
Brown, Chief Counsel, Environment; Sydney Greene, Director of
Finance and Logistics; Christen Harsha, Senior Counsel,
Environment; Calvin Huggins, Clerk; Megan Jackson, Staff
Director; Sarah Meier, Counsel and Parliamentarian; Joel
Miller, Chief Counsel; Ben Mullaney, Press Secretary; Kaitlyn
Peterson, Policy Analyst, Environment; Chris Sarley, Member
Services/Stakeholder Director; Matt VanHyfte, Communications
Director; Jane Vickers, Press Assistant; Katie West, Press
Secretary; Katherine Willey, Senior Counsel, Environment;
Giancarlo Ceja, Minority Environment Fellow; Anthony Gutierrez,
Minority Professional Staff Member; Caitlin Haberman, Minority
Staff Director, Environment; Emma Roehrig, Minority Staff
Assistant; Kylea Rogers, Minority Policy Analyst.
Mr. Griffith. The Subcommittee on Environment will now come
to order.
The Chair recognizes himself for a 5-minute opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Today, this subcommittee will examine coal ash management
practices and innovative ways people are utilizing coal waste.
Coal, historically, has played a major role in keeping our
lights on and powering our large industries, and our hospitals,
et cetera.
Currently, there are over 200 coal-fired electric power
plants in the United States and a fair amount of individual
boilers that use coal for fuel. Coal's fuel storage attributes
and its dispatchable power qualities continue to make it a
crucial component of our domestic electric power mix.
Today's hearing will focus on one of the byproducts of coal
use: coal combustion residuals, commonly called CCR or coal
ash. The Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, first
began regulating coal combustion residuals from electric
utilities in 2014 under its Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, or RCRA, powers, subtitle D authority, to regulate solid
waste.
In 2016, the Water Infrastructure and Improvements for the
Nation Act amended RCRA to grant the EPA the authority to
approve State CCR permit programs if a State chose to run its
own program. However, nearly a decade later, only three State
programs have been approved. Hopefully, today we will learn
more about States' permitting programs and how EPA is using its
CCR permitting approval authority.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration pressed
necessary coal ash regulations into its wider attempts to force
a transition to renewable energy by imposing unreasonable and
onerous regulations on disfavored traditional energy resources,
like coal.
This attack on coal included a 2024 rule regulating
inactive coal combustion residual storage sites, or legacy
impoundments, as well as sites where coal ash had previously
been placed, known as coal combustion residuals management
units. Utilities warned that this unworkable rule would impose
needless and unplanned costs on ratepayers, who are already
facing excessive increases in their rates.
Today, we will learn more about the problems with the
current regulatory landscape and the cost it imposes on power
generation and, in turn, ratepayers.
Thankfully, in March of this year, the EPA announced that
it is reviewing this rule and plans to propose amendments
within the next year. Additionally, EPA has announced it plans
to prioritize working with States on their permit programs to
hopefully facilitate more State management of coal ash
disposal.
I am encouraged by the Trump administration's apparent
willingness to listen to the States and their utilities, and
hope that the EPA can work with them, and not against them, as
partners in protecting our environment.
I also hope to learn more today about opportunities to
improve the reuse of coal byproducts. In addition to this
primary use, coal byproducts can be reused for many purposes,
such as cement manufacturing, drywall manufacturing, road
paving and producing concrete. And yesterday, I read an article
about using it in wastewater treatment facilities to get out
dyes and certain heavy metals. This recycling, known as
beneficial use, can not only save cost, but also result in
lower emissions.
Many may be surprised to hear that there is a thriving coal
ash reuse industry in the United States. According to the
American Coal Ash Association, 69 percent of all coal ash
produced in 2023 was recycled.
In addition to these established uses in construction,
agriculture, waste management, and mining, new uses are
emerging. For example, research from the University of Texas
found that as much as 11 million tons of rare earth elements--
rare earth elements--can be found and be accessible in coal ash
in the United States.
In fact, researchers from Virginia Tech, located in my home
district--and where one of my children graduated, one is
attending and one hopes to attend--they are leading projects to
analyze the presence of critical minerals and rare earth
elements in coal byproducts.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States
currently relies on imports for 80 percent of its supply of
rare earth elements, with 70 percent of those imports coming
from China. Our regulatory policies for coal combustion
residuals management must facilitate continued beneficial use.
I look forward to today's discussion of how we can address
shortcomings of our current approach to coal combustion
residuals management and innovation in how our country deals
with waste.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Griffith follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. And, with that, I yield back and now
recognize the ranking member, Mr. Tonko of New York, for his 5-
minute opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TONKO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Yesterday, the committee marked up more than a dozen energy
bills, several of which had the goal of continuing the
operation of uncompetitive coal-fired power plants.
But one issue that was seriously overlooked in yesterday's
debate was the public health and environmental threats posed by
these generators. We should not lose sight of the serious
downsides to burning coal. Air pollution is often the first
thing discussed, including emissions of particulate matter,
mercury, and other hazardous air pollutants, as well as
tremendous amounts of climate pollution.
But we cannot forget that these power plants also create
waste, known as coal combustion residuals, or coal ash. And for
far too long this waste has not been disposed of safely,
leading to groundwater contamination and other environmental
damage. These contaminations are not only dangerous, but they
also are costly and difficult to remediate.
In 2008, a major Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash
impoundment failed, resulting in over a billion gallons of
slurry polluting the environment, which took years and more
than $1 billion to clean up. And while high-profile incidents
like TVA's grab headlines, lower levels of contamination near
these sites are, unfortunately, extremely common.
Analysis from the Environmental Integrity Project and
Earthjustice found that 91 percent of U.S. coal plants are
causing unsafe levels of groundwater contamination. EPA
acknowledged these risks and finalized a rule in 2015 to
support the safe disposal of coal combustion residuals.
This rule sought to prevent the disposal of coal ash in
unlined ponds and require monitoring of groundwater and cleanup
of contamination. But, unfortunately, the 2015 rule did not
apply to landfills that had ceased receiving coal ash or
generating facilities that had ceased operating prior to the
rule's finalization. In 2024, EPA finalized another rule to
cover these so-called legacy sites excluded from the 2015 rule.
And I am very concerned that several industry groups have
already begun a lobbying campaign to roll back this rule. Like
so many of EPA's previously announced deregulatory efforts, a
weakening of either the 2015 or 2024 rule would represent an
effort to shield polluters from costs associated with
reasonable steps to protect public health and the environment,
in this case ensuring the safe disposal and management of coal
ash waste.
At yesterday's markup, we heard a lot of talk about
subsidizing electricity producers, about whether renewables
should receive subsidies, and whether or not fossil fuel
generators currently receive subsidies at all. And I want to
make it clear, they absolutely do.
When we socialize the cost of the environmental and public
health harms caused by coal-fired power plants onto everyday
Americans, especially those living near these sites, we are
providing coal plant operators with a massive subsidy.
When coal ash leaches into people's water supplies, they
pay a price, including the healthcare costs and health outcomes
associated with failing to address the safe disposal of this
waste. But I understand that there may be different approaches
as to how to effectively manage this waste.
So in addition to EPA's regulatory actions in 2015,
Congress passed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the
Nation Act, or the WIIN Act. The WIIN Act allows States, with
EPA's approval, to manage disposal of coal ash through a
permitting program provided the State standards are as
protective as Federal standards.
Cooperative Federalism is a hallmark of our Nation's
successful environmental laws, and I do believe States can play
an important role in addressing coal ash waste.
However, I am incredibly concerned by the President's
fiscal year 2026 budget request, which included a $1 billion
proposed cut to EPA's categorical grants that States rely upon
to implement and enforce environmental laws. This is part of a
troubling trend from the administration, which is also apparent
in the majority's budget bill that pushes more costs onto
States, which will make the successful implementation of State-
led environmental programs that more difficult. If we want
States to be effective partners in environmental protection, we
must ensure they have the resources and capacity necessary to
do the job.
Finally, I understand that much of today's hearing will
focus on the beneficial uses of coal ash. I want to be clear
that I am by no means opposed to beneficial uses, provided that
these uses are proven to not harm public health and the
environment. Finding effective methods to use coal ash is worth
continuing to pursue. However, careful consideration of these
potential uses must be a priority.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration's efforts to
undermine EPA's scientific capacity by significantly shrinking
the Office of Research and Development and attacking the
Agency's scientific integrity policy is a serious cause for
concern.
I worry that this could undermine EPA's ability to conduct
independent scientific assessments of the risks of potential
beneficial uses. I want to encourage Members on both sides of
the aisle who want to see more safe, beneficial uses of coal
ash to oppose the mass layoffs and reorganization of EPA.
With that, Mr. Chair, I look forward to today's discussion
and, with that, yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tonko follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, the
gentleman from Kentucky, for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRETT GUTHRIE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to all of our witnesses for being here. We
appreciate you being here today.
Coal ash is produced by coal-fired electric power plants.
In 2014, EPA issued its first rule regulating coal ash as a
nonhazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act. This is one of the rules issued as part of the Obama
administration's war on coal.
There were immediate concerns about how the rule would be
implemented, about how it did not take into account regional
differences, and how it would affect the electric power supply.
Congress amended RCRA in 2016 to make it easier for States
to regulate coal ash through permit programs, based on their
local conditions. But it has been difficult for States to get
the necessary approval from EPA. This is the committee's first
hearing on coal ash in about 10 years.
The Biden administration continued the attack on fossil
fuels, issuing a rule in April 2024 that expanded the scope of
the Obama-era rule to facilities that were already closed. I
cosponsored Subcommittee Chairman Griffith's resolution last
Congress to overturn that rule.
And I welcome the steps EPA Administrator Zeldin has
announced to prioritize the approval of State programs and to
review the deadlines and requirements imposed on electric
utilities by the Biden administration's 2024 rule.
Today, we will hear from a top environmental regulator of
North Dakota and from Rural Electric Co-Op in Arizona about
their experiences with EPA and how the coal ash program can be
improved.
We will also hear about the environmental and other
benefits of using coal ash in road and other infrastructure
projects, and how this unassuming material may be an important
domestic source of rare earth elements needed to power our
artificial intelligence economy and our national security.
I look forward to the hearing from our witnesses. I
absolutely appreciate each and every one of you for being here
today. Look forward to your opening statements and our
discussion, and I will I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guthrie follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full
committee, the gentleman from New Jersey, for 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today the subcommittee is examining coal ash regulations at
the EPA. Coal ash is a waste product generated from burning
coal for energy. It is radioactive and contains toxic
contaminants like arsenic, lead, mercury, and chromium.
Some power plants dispose of coal ash in surface
impoundments, storing the waste in ponds at operating or
inactive facilities, and this poses a serious risk to the
surrounding communities, threatening human health and the
environment.
Contaminants can leach into groundwater and drinking water
supplies or become airborne as toxic dust. Aging or deficient
impoundments can fail structurally, resulting in catastrophic
floods of toxic sludge entering neighboring communities.
The EPA first determined that national disposal criteria
were needed for coal ash 25 years ago, and this led to
regulations starting in 2015. And then Congress acted 9 years
ago with passage of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for
the Nation, I guess the WIIN Act.
This law gave States the ability to create their own coal
ash management programs as long as they provide equal or
greater protection to Federal standards. And last year, EPA
finally updated their rule to include all the legacy coal ash
waste sites under their purview.
Now, the passage of this law now provides us many data
points to measure the success of State and Federal regulations
to manage coal ash waste and protect surrounding communities.
Unfortunately, the data doesn't paint a good picture. There
have been countless examples of weak State enforcement, large-
scale releases of toxic sludge, and public health harms.
According to the industry's own data, over 90 percent of
coal plants have reported groundwater contamination from their
coal ash storage sites. And we still see coal ash stored in
unlined pits that leach into groundwater or that gets blown
into neighboring communities.
To protect the health and safety of those living near coal
ash sites, we need strong Federal standards for the disposal
and management of this toxic waste and strong enforcement of
those standards at the State and Federal level.
But EPA's budget proposal and staffing cuts make it clear
that Federal enforcement is not a priority. The Trump
administration is hurting EPA's ability to ensure coal ash
disposal and pollution do not put Americans' health at risk.
At a time when the administration should be ensuring States
are following the law, EPA Administrator Zeldin is instead
turning over responsibility of coal ash management to States,
and this is an abdication of responsibility, considering the
well-documented pattern of States allowing this toxic pollution
to continue unabated.
The Republican majority is also likely to discuss the
beneficial uses of coal ash and explore additional
opportunities to divert more of this waste from ponds or
landfills. And I agree that coal ash recycling helps decrease
Americans' exposure to this toxic substance, but it is critical
that we follow the science to ensure the uses don't cause
further harm and contamination.
While using encapsulated coal ash in construction materials
can be a good recycling method for this waste, using
unencapsulated coal ash as ground fill is not. And while pilot
projects extracting critical minerals from coal ash are
promising, they should not be touted as a reason to prop up
uneconomic, outdated, and high-polluting coal ash plants.
Now, I heard the chairman of the full committee talk about
Biden and the war on coal. Look, I don't think there is anyone
who wants a war on coal. I think the problem is that we have--
if there is anything, the war has been against, you know, the
impact of coal harming people.
You know, there is nothing wrong with using a fossil fuel,
in this case, coal or any--for energy purposes, but we can't
have it cause harm to our health and safety, not only to the
people who live there, downwind, whatever, but in this case,
you know, clear contamination from coal ash.
So as we discuss this issue, let's not forget the broader
legacy of coal and what any possible resurgence would mean for
communities across the country. We are not saying there
shouldn't be a resurgence, but there can't be a resurgence of
the harm. We would see an increase in black lung disease in
young people, more air pollution-related deaths, and increased
cancer rates from exposure to coal ash fill.
And, you know, we can't afford to repeat the mistakes of
the past. That is all we are saying. If you find beneficial
uses, fine, but not things that are going to harm people in
hopes of a different outcome. You are not going to have a
different outcome. We know what the results are from some of
this damage.
So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I
yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
We now conclude with Member opening statements.
The Chair would like to remind Members that. pursuant to
committee rules, all Members' opening statements will be made a
part of the record.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and
taking the time to testify before the subcommittee.
Although it is not the practice of this subcommittee to
swear in witnesses, I would remind our witnesses that knowingly
and willfully making materially false statements to the
legislative branch is against the law under Title 18, Section
1001 of the United States Code.
You will have an opportunity to give an opening statement,
followed by questions from Members.
Today, our witnesses are Mrs. Michelle Freeark, executive
director of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Services at
Arizona G&T Cooperative; Mr. Dave Glatt, director at the North
Dakota Department of Environmental Quality; Ms. Lisa Evans,
senior attorney at Earthjustice--welcome; and Mr. Tom Adams,
executive director at the American Coal Ash Association.
We appreciate all of you being here today.
And I now recognize Mrs. Freeark for 5 minutes to give an
opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF MICHELLE FREEARK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF
REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND CORPORATE SERVICES, ARIZONA ELECTRIC
POWER COOPERATIVE; L. DAVID GLATT, DIRECTOR, NORTH DAKOTA
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY; LISA EVANS, SENIOR
COUNSEL, EARTHJUSTICE; AND THOMAS H. ADAMS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
AMERICAN COAL ASH ASSOCIATION
STATEMENT OF MICHELLE FREEARK
Ms. Freeark. Chairman Griffith, Ranking Member Tonko, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today.
My name is Michelle Freeark, and I serve as the executive
director of regulatory affairs and corporate services at
Arizona Electric Power Cooperative. AEPCO is a member-owned,
not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative based in
Benson, Arizona.
AEPCO's purpose is to generate electricity and transmit it
to distribution cooperatives that deliver power to end-use
consumers in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and California.
AEPCO's service area includes cost-sensitive rural and
disadvantaged communities, and we are committed to balancing
our environmental stewardship with the cooperative's mission to
provide safe, reliable, and competitively priced power to its
members.
Reliable and affordable electricity is essential to
America's economic growth. And as our Nation increasingly
relies on electricity to power our economy, keeping the lights
on has never been more important or more challenging.
Over the next 5 years, the North American Electric
Reliability Corporation forecasts that all or parts of several
States are at high risk of rolling blackouts during normal peak
conditions. This problem is compounded by the rapid growth of
data centers in rural areas. Some forecasts project data
centers will consume 9 percent of all U.S. electric generation
by 2030. In AEPCO's service territory alone, there are
currently over 3 gigawatts of capacity demand for development.
AEPCO is presently constructing new natural gas units and
solar plus battery energy storage systems to expand and
diversify our generation portfolio. Renewable energy sources,
like solar and batteries, can play a strategic role in the
Western energy grid, but reliable and dispatchable generation
sources, including coal and natural gas, are necessary to carry
out our mission of providing safe, reliable, competitively
priced power to electric co-ops in the Southwest. Because
electric co-ops are owned and governed by the consumer members
we serve, we have a vested interest in protecting and
maintaining the environment within our communities.
Just as all generation sources have some form of waste,
coal ash, also referred to as coal combustion residuals, or
CCR, is a byproduct of coal-fired electric generation. AEPCO
has a robust CCR compliance program to comply with all
operational monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping
requirements of Federal CCR regulation and has worked closely
with the EPA to comply with such regulations.
AEPCO's current and past CCR disposal activities are also
robustly regulated under Arizona's Aquifer Protection Program,
administered by the Arizona Department of Environmental
Quality, which requires frequent groundwater monitoring and CCR
unit maintenance and inspections to reduce the potential
discharge of pollutants to the greatest degree achievable.
Additionally, AEPCO currently exceeds Federal CCR
regulation beneficial use provisions by selling 90 percent-plus
of our fly ash to a third party owned by the Salt River Pima-
Maricopa Indian Community for alternative uses, reducing the
amount of CCR that is disposed in our impoundments.
Federal action and inaction regulating coal combustion
residuals has resulted in unworkable and unreasonable
regulatory requirements for the power sector, making it more
difficult for electric co-ops to serve their consumer members
and your constituents.
The EPA's legacy rule finalized last year established
regulatory requirements for two new classes of CCR units but
fails to consider the diverse characteristics, sizes, and
relative risks of sites. Instead, its one-size-fits-all
approach will result in massive costs to the utility industry
that will ultimately be borne by rural end consumers and which
will exacerbate challenges to the reliable delivery of
electricity.
Furthermore, Federal CCR regulations are currently self-
implementing, which means that utilities are unable to work
with State or Federal regulators to tailor regulatory
requirements to site-specific conditions through permit
programs, unlike with other Federal environmental programs.
This is despite the fact that our State has effectively
regulated CCR for decades.
Without a Federal permitting in place, enforcement is
presently serving as an ill-fitting substitute and exposing
power companies to a great deal of uncertainty.
We commend the EPA's decision to reconsider the harmful
legacy rule but urge EPA to delay upcoming deadlines while they
determine what to do with the requirements.
We also urge the administration and Congress to support
site-specific, risk-based Federal and State CCR programs as
mandated by the WIIN Act of 2016 to support our country's
rapidly growing energy demands while maintaining important
environmental protections.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important
issue. I look forward to answering any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Freeark follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. Thank you.
Mr. Glatt, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF L. DAVID GLATT
Mr. Glatt. Good morning, Chairman Griffith and members of
the Subcommittee on Environment.
My name is Dave Glatt. I am director of the North Dakota
Department of Environmental Quality and have been with the
Department for just over 42 years. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on this important issue.
What I would like to do today is my testimony will
highlight North Dakota's experience with the regulation of
beneficial use of coal ash and the Federal coal combustion
residuals program review process. In addition, I will touch on
the more recent interest in rare earth mineral extraction from
coal deposits and coal ash.
North Dakota is known for its agriculture and energy
dominance. It is home to abundant natural resources of lignite
coal deposits and significant oil and gas reserves.
Since the 1980s, North Dakota has regulated coal ash at
several mine mouth electric generation facilities, ensuring the
protection of public and environmental health through
comprehensive rules, which identify appropriate landfill
locations through a multi-interstate agency review process,
require groundwater monitoring and routine reporting, restrict
permit lengths to a maximum of 10 years, require 30-year
postclosure monitoring and financial assurance, require
landfill cells to be engineered to ensure slope stability,
liner suitability, and cap integrity, require public review and
participation in the permit process. The State rules have, for
over four decades, proven to be effective in the protection of
the environment and public health.
With the proven success of North Dakota's CCR program,
there was the belief that seeking Federal program approval
would have its challenges but overall would be a
straightforward process. Unfortunately, our assessment could
not have been more wrong, as the State has spent over 5 years
seeking Federal primacy approval, with the process ongoing.
Since the State initiated its quest for CCR Federal program
approval pre-2020, there have been over three different draft
submittals, a change in North Dakota law in reference to a
groundwater definition, and several rounds of last final
comments with no defined outcome.
The Federal review and approval process can be
characterized as frustrating, unnecessarily long, time-
consuming, and at times, not rooted in sound science and the
law.
Federal comments relating to program implementation were
provided without visiting the North Dakota facilities,
resulting in some comments being seen as inappropriate based on
existing site conditions, such as recommending placing
monitoring wells that would have been in the middle of a haul
road, on severe side slopes, or that would have pierced the
landfill liner. We believe site-specific knowledge of local
climate, geology, facility design and operations is critical in
the proper regulation of facilities.
To improve the review and approval process and incentivize
States to seek Federal program approval, we suggest the
following: visit the State seeking Federal program approval to
get an understanding of the regulatory and physical State-
specific conditions; respect and acknowledge State expertise;
comply with law and rigid timelines; avoid agenda-driven
processes by following applicable science and the law; have
clearly defined outcomes and goals; acknowledge State
sovereignty; pursue a doctrine of cooperative Federalism.
In addition to the North Dakota history of the regulation
of handling storage and disposal of coal ash, we regulate the
beneficial use of certain coal ash materials. We believe coal
ash can exhibit certain beneficial use characteristics and is
not appropriate to regulate as a hazardous waste.
State law outlines the legislative intent that coal
combustion residuals can be beneficially used in concrete,
construction applications, and other innovative uses.
To ensure coal ash is beneficially used and does not impart
undue public or environmental risk, we require periodic
laboratory testing of all coal ashes relating to leachability
of trace metals and other physical characteristics, including
radioactive characteristics.
Product testing and approval are required before beneficial
use application and required not less than every 5 years, or
sooner if feed source or EDU environmental controls change.
Fly ash can be used for a lot of beneficial uses, which you
described today, such as concrete admixture. We use it for
abandoned mines. And some of the ash has actually been used for
sand traps at golf courses.
In the United States, there is a growing concern regarding
our dependence on imported rare earth minerals, especially
those from our foreign adversaries. These rare earth minerals
are critical to modern technology. They are needed for
technological advancements, manufacturing, and, most
importantly, national defense and security.
North Dakota is ready to step up to meet this growing
demand. We are exploring the potential of coal and coal ash
products. In our most recent legislative session, we passed a
bill that would allow coal companies to further explore mining
these rare earth minerals in the United States.
In our State, we have a fantastic team of researchers from
State agencies to our universities, and the Energy and
Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota
in Grand Forks, looking at the potential of North Dakota
lignite to supply marketable quantities of 14 rare earth and
other critical minerals.
We know rare earth elements are found in CCR and coal----
Mr. Griffith. Mr. Glatt, if you could conclude your
comments.
Mr. Glatt. Yes. One sentence.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you.
Mr. Glatt. We have potential to redefine traditional uses
of coal towards meeting the U.S. demand for these elements, and
we are in the process of researching and improving our recovery
potential.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Glatt follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. Ms. Evans, you are now recognized for your 5-
minute opening statement.
STATEMENT OF LISA EVANS
Ms. Evans. Thank you. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to----
Mr. Griffith. Mic.
We are going to restart your time too.
Ms. Evans. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank
you for this opportunity to address the threats from coal ash
to health, environment, and the economy.
I am Lisa Evans, senior counsel for Earthjustice, the
Nation's largest nonprofit environmental law firm. I worked
previously as an assistant regional counsel for U.S. EPA
enforcing hazardous waste laws.
My fellow panelists would have you ignore the hazardous
constituents in coal ash. They don't want to talk about the
hundreds of leaking toxic dumps created by the coal power
industry, but ignoring this is to allow the utility industry to
continue to pollute our water.
As Ranking Members Tonko and Pallone mentioned--but it
bears repeating--91 percent of U.S. coal plants are today
contaminating groundwater with hazardous pollutants above
Federal safe standards. This is based on industry data from
nearly 300 coal plants in 43 States.
Coal ash contains hazardous substances, including arsenic,
chromium, cobalt, lead, lithium, radium. and more. These cause
a long list of serious health problems, many types of cancer,
heart and thyroid disease, respiratory problems, damage to the
brain and reproductive organs.
Coal ash can harm every major organ in the human body. Coal
ash is also one of the largest sources of industrial toxic
waste. U.S. coal plants produce nearly 70 million tons each
year, enough to fill train cars stretching round trip from
Washington, DC, to Los Angeles.
We can't recycle our way out of the toxic mess created by
the coal industry. While we support the reuse of ash into
products like concrete and wallboard, where the waste is
encapsulated and unable to leach toxic chemicals, these
products use less than 40 percent of the coal ash generated
each year. Reuse can't solve the problems posed by the millions
of tons of toxic waste sitting currently in leaking ash dumps.
The American Coal Ash Association claims that coal ash is
just like dirt, but I don't want this arsenic-laden,
radioactive dirt anywhere near my children or grandchildren,
and I don't think you do either.
The utility and coal ash recycling industries don't want
EPA rules to address practices given the misleading label of,
quote, ``beneficial use.'' But what is beneficial use?
It is not what is happening in Michigan City, Indiana,
where NIPSCO dumped 2 million tons of coal ash directly into
Lake Michigan to make more land for its power plant. The people
of Michigan City do not benefit from the toxic mess held back
by aging steel pilings. The structural fill is leaking toxic
chemicals into their drinking water source and following a
stream where locals fish.
Beneficial use also did not occur in Morrisville, North
Carolina, where a million tons of arsenic-laden, radioactive
coal ash from Duke Energy was used as a substitute for soil at
the high school, homes, a public park, a daycare center, and
roads. Ask some Morrisville teenager whose friends have died of
thyroid cancer.
The only people who benefit from so-called beneficial use
of coal ash when it is used as a replacement for dirt is the
industry, who profits on the backs of the communities left with
the toxic mess that has been moved from power plants into
people's backyards.
Americans near the almost a thousand regulated coal ash
dumps and countless more places where toxic ash was used as
soil need your help to ensure that there are strong laws to
stop coal plants from polluting our water.
But the utility industry is pushing back to weaken current
laws. They told EPA to back off enforcement. In response, the
Trump administration promptly abandoned EPA's national
enforcement initiative, which made coal ash a priority. Trump's
reckless U-turn gives industry a free pass to continue to
violate essential safeguards.
The coal industry is demanding the Federal Government
outsource its oversight to State coal ash permit programs. In
response, the Trump administration is speeding the approval
process in coal-friendly States where coal ash programs are
less protective than the Federal rule. Once these programs are
approved and lax permits are issued, residents will suffer.
The coal industry is calling on EPA also to delay for an
indefinite time the cleanup of hundreds of coal ash dumps newly
regulated in 2024.
Lastly, the coal industry wants EPA to ignore science,
because they don't like what it says about coal ash. Recently,
EPA found that coal ash was much more dangerous than previously
thought, because of elevated arsenic and radioactivity.
Coal ash pollution is a problem that recycling cannot
solve. The solution requires Federal and State regulators and
Members of Congress to place public health above polluters'
pocketbooks.
Thank you.\1\
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\1\ Ms. Evans' statement has been retained in committee files and
is available at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF18/20250626/
118432/HHRG-119-IF18-Wstate-EvansL-20250626.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Adams for his 5-minute opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS H. ADAMS
Mr. Adams. Chairman Griffith, Ranking Member Tonko, and
members of the subcommittee, we would like to thank you for
organizing a hearing to focus on beneficial use of coal ash.
This is a topic that is often overlooked in the heated debates
over coal-fueled electricity and coal ash disposal regulations.
My name is Thomas Adams. I am the executive director of the
American Coal Ash Association. Our mission is to encourage the
beneficial use of coal ash in ways that are environmentally
responsible, technically appropriate, and promoting more
sustainable activities in construction and other uses.
Coal ash beneficial use already constitutes one of
America's greatest recycling success stories. Over the past
several decades, hundreds of millions of tons of coal ash have
been used to construct resilient infrastructure and manufacture
more sustainable building materials. In doing so, our Nation
has conserved natural resources, reduced energy and water
consumption, and significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions
from production of materials coal ash replaces when used in
concrete.
My written testimony contains details about coal ash
beneficial use trends and steps that can be taken to become
even more effective in utilizing this important resource, but
please permit me to highlight a few key points.
First of all, utilizing materials that otherwise go to
waste is not a new concept. Solid waste regulation is under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Let me repeat that:
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Beneficial use of
materials like coal ash is not an afterthought. It was one of
the central goals established when it enacted our Nation's
guide for environmental regulations when Congress acted on this
in the mid-'70s.
Second, the reasons for using coal ash go beyond the
apparent environmental benefits of building fewer landfills,
conserving natural resources, and reducing greenhouse gas
emissions by millions of tons per year.
Improved product performance was the driving factor behind
the development of an industry that today beneficially uses
nearly 70 percent of the Nation's new ash production and has
begun harvesting millions of tons of previously disposed ash
for the same purposes.
It is a fact that concrete made with coal ash is stronger
and more durable than concrete made with cement alone, all
while significantly reducing concrete's carbon footprint.
Harvesting previously disposed coal ash is a rapidly
growing activity, accounting for approximately 4 million tons
of utilization in 2023, with numerous additional harvesting
projects coming online since that time and more coming in the
next 2 years.
With more than 2 billion tons of previously disposed ash in
the United States, this represents an abundant and secure
domestic resource. Those who would argue against harvesting
coal ash are for continuing to rely on imported cementitious
materials and exporting the environmental impacts of
manufacturing those materials when imported.
This is probably a good place to emphasize an important
point: Coal ash is not toxic. Coal ash contains only trace
amounts of metals of potential concern. A 2012 study by the
U.S. Geological Survey data concluded that metals are found in
coal ash at levels similar to levels in ordinary soils and rock
throughout the United States. Coal ash is no more toxic than
the materials it replaces when used in manufacturing products.
Furthermore, EPA itself has validated the safety of coal
ash beneficial use in risk evaluations of major uses, including
fly ash used in concrete and synthetic gypsum used in
wallboard, as well as synthetic gypsum used in agriculture.
ACAA has utilized EPA's risk evaluation methodology to validate
the safety of ash used in controlled low-strength materials,
also known as flowable fill.
Finally, the potential opportunity to simultaneously
extract rare earth elements from coal ash resource provides
additional incentive for regulators and other policymakers to
return to the resource conservation and recovery mindset that
was present at the outset of the Nation's solid waste
regulatory structure.
Careful development of these extraction technologies could
reduce America's dependence on foreign supply of critical
materials while maintaining the ability to use the bulk of the
resource for traditional beneficial uses like cement and
concrete.
ACAA encourages policymakers at all levels to identify and
remove regulatory barriers and to take a more active role in
encouraging coal ash beneficial use.
For those who are concerned about issues related to coal
ash disposal, may I offer one suggestion: The best solution to
coal ash disposal problems is to quit throwing it away.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adams follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
I thank you all for your testimony. We will now move into
the question-and-answer portion of the hearing. And I will
begin the questioning and recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Adams, we heard the comments both from the dais and
from other witnesses that coal ash has radioactive elements in
it.
Is that predominantly radon?
Mr. Adams. Radon is present as are a number of other
things. And radon testing is required across this country. In
some places, you cannot get a residential mortgage without
doing radon testing prior to executing the mortgage. So this is
a material that is known, and it is being addressed.
Mr. Griffith. I was going to say it apparently is in a
significant portion of my district in the clays and other rock
material. And so when I bought my house, the testing was done,
and we had to have a radon mitigation unit put into the house.
It is fairly simple, but we had to have it put in. It wasn't
very expensive, but still. And we are not anywhere near a coal
ash pond or a coal-generating facility, but there was the
radon.
All right. Let me get to the questions I originally had.
As you know, Mr. Adams, Congress reinforced the coal ash
solid waste determination in 2016 by amending the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, to have States and
utilities look at contamination risk and make sure coal ash
ponds are structurally safe. I do agree we need to make sure
that coal ash ponds don't fail.
Could you explain how the EPA's coal combustion residual
rule under the Biden administration didn't take into account
the advantages of beneficial use and restricted what types of
CCR or coal combustion residual sites are considered
harvestable?
Mr. Adams. Yes. When the rules were put together, we raised
the issue of harvesting as an opportunity to take the materials
out of disposal units, landfills, and ponds and put them into
beneficial use.
At that point in time, the rule was at review at Office of
Management and Budget. And they basically listened to us and
said, ``We don't have time to really investigate this in this
rulemaking for this particular rule.'' So we raised the issue
of harvesting way back when when the rule was being put
together, and it was ignored.
Today, we are getting that industry off the ground, and it
is proving to be very successful and increasing, and it is
removing ash from storage units in several places around the
country already--this coming year about 5 million tons, which
will grow in the next coming years as well.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that.
Ms. Freeark, last year the Biden EPA issued the legacy coal
combustion residual rule that was not based on site-specific
risk.
If some of those coal ash sites don't pose a significant
risk, shouldn't they be evaluated on a risk-based standard
under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA, to
understand if the costs are being spent to actually address
contamination or potential contamination?
Ms. Freeark. Thank you for the question. Yes, we agree
that, without having the risk-based site-specific conditions,
it was a one-size-fits-all approach.
So the sweeping part of the legacy rule was all the new
classes of existing impoundments at inactive or active sites
just kind of got swept into one class and not evaluated on a
site-specific basis, whereas AEPCO has closed-in-place
impoundments that were closed under a State-permitted program
with postclosure monitoring that would be considered a CCR
management unit today under the legacy rule.
So why would you want to reopen something that has already
been closed when it met standards for the States?
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that.
Mr. Glatt, can you explain to me why was coal ash
restricted for some other uses in the 2024 rule when in the
2015 regulation EPA specifically mentions how coal ash has
beneficial uses and is not--let me repeat: not--classified as
hazardous waste?
Mr. Glatt. Mr. Chairman, I struggle with that a lot.
Sometimes I wonder where the science is in all of this as we
move forward. And at times I felt those decisions were
arbitrary, not really looking at the science behind really what
the risks were associated with coal ash.
And so I can't tell you why they went that direction other
than I do think they ignored some of the science and actual
work that was being done in the States on this issue.
Mr. Griffith. Now, can you explain how each site is
different and how you would expect to evaluate a coal ash site?
And I assume you do that in your State.
Mr. Glatt. Mr. Chairman, yes, we do. You have to look at
everything site-specific. North Dakota geology is different
from the east part of the State to the west part of the State.
North Dakota geology is different than West Virginia geology.
And so you have to look at site-specific conditions and
really what the risk is. And then based on that, then you come
up with a plan that is protective of the environment and public
health. The States need that flexibility.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate it.
I now yield back, my time being up.
And I recognize the ranking member, Mr. Tonko, for his 5
minutes of questions.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Evans, let's start with a few basic questions about why
coal ash was regulated in the first place. Can you explain how
coal ash may pose a threat to our health and our environment if
it contaminates groundwater?
Ms. Evans. [Mic turned off.]
Mr. Griffith. And the reason we need the mic on is the
folks watching on C-SPAN later tonight or tomorrow or next week
can't hear you if you don't talk into the mic.
Ms. Evans. OK. My button does not seem to work very well.
So I believe the question was----
Mr. Griffith. We reset your time. If you would please go
forward.
Ms. Evans. Could we have the question again, please?
Mr. Tonko. Sure. Can you explain how coal ash may pose a
threat to our health and our environment if it contaminates
groundwater?
Ms. Evans. The threat to groundwater and to surface water
and to air and soil through mismanagement of the disposal of
coal ash is rampant throughout the United States.
One of the biggest problems is that the States have not
regulated coal ash during the start of the burning of coal. So
we have been burning coal in the United States at coal-fired
power plants since the early 1900s.
For the entirety of the time until 2015, when the Federal
Government stepped in, there was just a patchwork of mostly
very poor State regulations. And in fact, in some States there
were no regulations at all.
So what you had was the dumping of this toxic material into
unlined pits, whether wet or dry, throughout the U.S., creating
this huge legacy of pollution.
And the reason why coal ash is so dangerous is that coal
naturally contains hazardous pollutants, and when you burn it,
those pollutants are concentrated in the coal ash. And not only
are they concentrated, but they are in a form that when water
hits it, it weaponizes those constituents.
So those hazardous constituents flow into water. And when
you have an unlined dump, you have rain coming in, you have
groundwater coming in from the bottom of the sites, you have
the hazardous contamination coming out.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Well, it seems that lining ponds
where coal ash is stored and requiring monitoring of nearby
groundwater is a pretty commonsense approach to protect water
quality.
If there was already a 2015 coal ash rule that did this,
can you give us a sense of why the Biden administration felt it
was necessary to finalize another coal ash rule in 2024?
Ms. Evans. Sure. Well, this answer has two parts. First,
the 2015 rule entirely left out what we call legacy ponds,
which are the older coal ash ponds at facilities that no longer
generated electricity after October of 2015, the effective date
of the 2015 rule.
Those ponds, which are about 200 throughout the United
States, fell out of that regulation. We sued EPA, because that
made no sense and left a huge universe of potentially polluting
dump sites. The DC Court of Appeals agreed with us and required
EPA to regulate those legacy ponds. So that is part of the 2024
rule. Those 200-some ponds will now be regulated--or are now
regulated.
The second part of the 2024 rule is all of the old dry
disposal areas at the power plant sites. Those were also not
covered under the 2015 rule if they didn't receive waste after
the effective date. But industry data showed that those units
are polluting as well. So we sued to get those included so that
corrective action, cleanup could be sitewide, not at individual
units.
You know, the way the 2015 rule worked is it would be as if
the L.A. firemen addressed one house, that was that, and left
the other ones burning. You have to address the entire site to
make sure that the groundwater is remediated.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. I mentioned earlier that I am very
concerned by the President's budget request, which includes
major cuts to grant programs that States rely upon. If enacted,
it would fundamentally change cooperative federalism as we know
it, all while we see a much more lax approach to enforcement at
the Federal level.
I would like to insert, Mr. Chair, into the record
testimony from the Environmental Council of States to the House
Committee on Appropriations from earlier this year.
Mr. Carter of Georgia [presiding]. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. ECOS testified, and I quote, ``States
carry out more than 90 percent of the Nation's Federal
environmental laws. Dramatic cuts to EPA that are passed along
to States will incapacitate State environmental programs while
creating massive uncertainty for State legislatures and
businesses.''
So I would also like to insert into the record, Mr. Chair,
an article from the InsideEPA titled ``North Dakota DEQ Chief
Eager To Work With EPA Amid Budget Cut Worry.''
Mr. Carter of Georgia. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Tonko. Thank you.
Mr. Glatt, is it safe to say you agree with the previous
quote from ECOS that if the proposed EPA budget cuts go into
effect, it will impact your State's ability to properly
administer environmental programs like the CCR permit program?
Mr. Glatt. Mr. Vice Chair, it has the potential to do that.
I guess we are going to have to see what the cuts are, the
magnitude and where they are at. But I will tell you that the
State will step up and take care of the problem if EPA does not
fund us.
Mr. Tonko. I noted in that article that you were quoted as
saying the budget cuts, quote, ``will have a very negative
impact on the States.''
And with that, I yield back.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. The gentleman yields.
The Chair now recognizes the chair of the full committee,
Representative Guthrie, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Ms. Freeark, based on your experience, does the 2024 legacy
coal ash rule require the closure of coal ash sites even if
they are not causing harm to human health and the environment?
And can you share your views on how much it will cost to comply
with this rule and what it would mean for your co-op members?
Ms. Freeark. Congressman, thank you for the question.
I can speak from my perspective at Arizona Electric Power
Cooperative. The 2024 legacy rule would require us to identify,
through a facility evaluation procedure, if we have any of
those new classes of legacy facilities at our site or, like I
mentioned before, our closed-in-place facilities that were
closed historically under a State program.
We would not have to reclose them as long as they met the
current EPA standards, but we would have to include those as
our existing facilities' CCR compliance for groundwater
monitoring, which we do under the State program. So it would
have to be rolled up into our existing CCR compliance program
and not under the State program.
As far as cost, I can tell you, just working through over
the last several months on, you know, the legacy rule requires
the steps of analysis to get through. And we are spending a
substantial amount of resources to complete those deadlines
because those deadlines still exist today without the repeal
going through.
And so, as we work through expending our funds to complete
those mechanisms of requirements, we are unable to put those
dollars towards other infrastructure that would be more
necessary.
So we are reviewing ponds that do not have an impact to the
environment, have been monitored since they have been closed
since 2005 under a State program for just essentially checking
a box under the Federal CCR rule that is duplicative of what we
have been doing.
Mr. Guthrie. So you are required to do something that is
going to cost you money that is not going to have any benefit--
--
Ms. Freeark. Right.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. To the health and----
So EPA is reviewing the 2024 legacy standard. What
recommendations do you have for EPA in considering the cost and
benefits of any amendments they may propose? What do you think
they should look at as they consider?
Ms. Freeark. Given I have been on the practitioner side
doing boots-on-the-ground work at our coal combustion residual
surface impoundments for nearly 21 years, I think going back to
those site-specific risk-based programs, identify those,
identify the uniqueness of all these sites--they are very
different, as Mr. Glatt has identified--continue to be able to
approve the funds for the development of those programs for
EPA.
Remind EPA that they need to implement the WIIN Act of
2016. And delaying these compliance deadlines for the legacy
rule need to be considered just so that we are not doing
unnecessary work right now, that if it goes away, we have
expended all these resources for no reason.
Mr. Guthrie. All right. Thank you.
So Mr. Glatt, you mentioned EPA has never visited the State
throughout the approval process.
Did EPA adequately consider State experience regulating
coal ash when reviewing your application?
Mr. Glatt. Representative, not in our experience. It was
pretty much a top-down ``Do as we say.'' It became very clear
they were book smart, practical dumb, in my terminology, is
that you really need to get out to the site and take a look at
what the totality of the site is geologywise, monitoring, and
to really get a feel before you can start commenting. But they
had no lack of comments without coming out to the site.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you.
And so, Mr. Adams, my great friend sitting to my immediate
left, my good friend from Alabama talks about critical rare
earth minerals, critical minerals all the time, and
appropriately so, because it is a dire national security issue
we have to focus on.
Can you share your views on if coal ash is a source of rare
earth elements, and what are the barriers, regulatory barriers
for recovering those, in 30 seconds.
Mr. Adams. Well, right now the biggest challenge is to
develop extraction technology that is going to be appropriate
for the material that is left behind, if you will.
If we extract the rare earth elements and we create a waste
product that is truly hazardous, then we haven't done ourselves
much good, really. We have solved one problem partially and
created another one that is much bigger.
So the technology research is really what is being focused
on right now, is finding a way to extract these materials
without causing harm to the residual material. So that is where
the market is right now. And there is a lot of work going on--I
can say that--a lot of ideas out there. But nobody has really
pinned it down as yet.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. My time is expired, and I yield
back.
Mr. Carter of Georgia. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full
committee, Representative Pallone, for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to focus on the track record of coal ash
management over the past few years and how we should approach
this waste product, given its toxic nature and risk it poses
for public health and safety.
When Congress passed the WIIN Act, we gave States the
ability to create their own coal ash permit programs, subject
to EPA approval. And the law was structured this way to address
one of the primary concerns, that States could not or would not
maintain the same level of protection that would otherwise be
required by the Federal Government.
So I just have a series of questions of Mrs. Evans. Since
the law's enactment, your organization has expressed concerns
with some of the State petitions.
So first, why do you think some States are not prepared to
manage coal ash on their own, if you will?
Ms. Evans. I think it is a matter of inadequate rules,
perhaps inadequate approach, and inadequate resources. So
first, in order for EPA to approve a State under the WIIN Act,
the regulations have to be at least as protective as the
Federal rule, and the implementation of those regulations in
the State must indicate that the State is applying these rules
to ensure that every coal ash dump in the State is following
those rules.
In multiple States, not just North Dakota--and we are
preparing comments on that proposed approval--but in Alabama is
a good example of a State that had exactly the same rules as
the Federal rules, but the way in which they applied them left
dumps violating the CCR rule in very important ways, whether it
was by closing coal ash ponds in groundwater so that they would
leak perpetually, perhaps approving inadequate groundwater
monitoring systems. And that cannot stand.
Approving a State that does not ensure that each coal ash
unit complies with Federal rules is approving a plan, a State
program, that is not as protective. And once EPA approves a
State program, it is very difficult to roll that back.
The WIIN Act says that EPA must evaluate the programs, but
only once every 12 years. And so you are going to have
generations of folks that are going to be dealing with permits
and with oversight that simply is not adequate.
We are seeing that in Georgia. So Georgia has a partial
approval. They have had it for many years now. And what we are
seeing in Georgia is that the State is approving permits for
inadequate groundwater monitoring systems, so we won't know how
much hazardous contaminants are leaving the dumps and also the
disposal of ash in groundwater at at least two facilities.
So that is totally unacceptable, and Earthjustice doesn't
want to see that happen in the States that are currently
interested, which are coal-friendly, coal-burning, they have
many coal-burning units. And we fear for the protection of the
residents in those States.
Mr. Pallone. What do you think--I think you answered it, my
second question, with what you said as well. But let me go to
my last question.
I mentioned in my opening statement that Mr. Zeldin has
decided to turn over coal ash enforcement responsibilities to
the States. He also committed to quickly consider North
Dakota's application for a State coal ash permit program. And
EPA granted North Dakota conditional approval in May and has
signaled it is posed--or poised to take similar actions in
other State applications.
So my question, Ms. Evans: In your opinion, how could
public health and safety be impacted by a shift to State
enforcement of coal ash, especially for communities in the
States seeking program approval from EPA, if you will?
Ms. Evans. You know, one thing that can occur is that
enforcements simply won't happen. The States, as you mentioned
earlier, are really stretched for funding. The funds for solid
waste versus funds for hazardous wastes in States is miniscule.
So they have got programs that may not be able to get the
inspectors out to determine whether there is compliance at the
facility.
And if there is not compliance, you are going to have
environmental damage. You are going to have contaminants
leaving those coal ash dumps, entering groundwater, entering
the air, following rivers. It is going to happen. It has
happened at almost every site that we have seen in the United
States. So there is no mystery here.
What is needed are Federal or State programs that follow
the requirements of the coal--the 2015 and 2024 rules because
those rules were meant to detect the pollution, stop the
pollution, and require cleanup.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Griffith [presiding]. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the vice chairman of the subcommittee, the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Crenshaw.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here. It is an important hearing.
I think we all agree that we don't want our environment
destroyed by coal ash or these byproducts. There is obviously
some disagreement as to whether that is happening at the scale
some claim.
We also have to, of course, think about grid reliability.
That is a common theme on this committee. Grid reliability,
people's power turning on is incredibly important. And baseload
power just disappearing is a pretty exceptional matter, to say
the least. And it shouldn't happen without some careful
thought, and I think--I believe many of these regulations are
perhaps unnecessary.
And also not taking into account another theme which has
been talked about, which is the--you know, the overlooked
aspect of this, which is that these CCP byproducts are indeed
strategic resources that need to be utilized. They can be
utilized to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen our
critical infrastructure, help keep reliable power plants
online. It contains rare earth elements and critical minerals
essential for defense, semiconductor production, clean energy
tech.
Tapping into that potential could reduce our dangerous
dependence on China and strengthen America's industrial base
and national security base all while still keeping the
environment clean.
Mr. Adams, could you speak to that for just a minute, about
these byproducts and why the EPA even labels them as a product
for good reason?
Mr. Adams. Well, certainly, when you talk about a product,
you are talking about something that has market value. If you
talk about them merely as residual materials, it doesn't
indicate anything to the marketplace that there is any economic
value to them.
EPA itself said that--this was a number of years ago--that
this industry had a value of about $23 billion in direct and
indirect expense, and that was over 10 years ago. That has only
grown a great deal as the value of these materials has started
to increase and approach the pricing that we see for
commodities like Portland cement.
So it has really developed into a much bigger economic
factor all by itself than just a waste material that you would
have if you regard the material as just something we need to
get rid of and get out of the way and get it out of our mind.
It is a resource--
Mr. Crenshaw. Let me respond. I mean, Ms. Evans' witness
testimony claims the opposite, says that uses of coal ash, such
as mining projects, structural fills, agriculture applications,
says they are--sham, sham recycling. And when coal ash is
placed on the ground, dangerous pollutants such as arsenic,
boron, cobalt, lithium, mercury, radium will leak into the
groundwater.
You said in a number of studies about the safety of the
reuse of coal ash in your written testimony, so wanted to give
you an opportunity to talk to us about that.
Mr. Adams. Well, as I referenced and I will reference
again, the USGS study that is in our written testimony
indicated that you will find arsenic and all these other things
that you just talked about is common background material in
soil and rock around the country. It was referenced earlier, I
believe by Chairman Griffith, that radon, that is in soils in
his area, and there is no coal-fired power plant anywhere
around.
So you run into these situations where background is
automatically assigned to coal ash if there happens to be a
plant somewhere, and it is not the case in many, many cases.
So when we are looking at these kinds of claims, you have
to look at what the background is in the area to make a
legitimate, honest evaluation of whether there is any kind of
problem there.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK. I appreciate that.
Mr. Glatt, quickly give you a chance to just--tell us some
of the safe and beneficial uses that we could be looking to
across industry.
Mr. Glatt. We currently--Vice Chair, we currently use it
for admixture to concrete. We use it for flowable fill for
abandoning mines. We use it in soil stabilization. I will say
that before it gets to that point, first the coal ash has to
show a beneficial characteristic. It can't be just waste
disposal. It has to be of beneficial use. Then we go through
testing to make sure it will not leach these products into the
environment. Once it goes through all that testing and it has
shown to be of beneficial use, then we approve it to move ahead
with concrete and all the things I mentioned.
Mr. Crenshaw. OK. I appreciate it. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
Mr. Ruiz for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is interesting that we are having this discussion about
protecting the environment, protecting health from coal ash,
and yet we are also saying that there is actually no harm to
the public's health because the materials exist in the
surrounding environment, and then--you know, it is sort of
speaking from two sides of the mouth.
But, Ms. Evans, what is the public health effect of coal
ash?
Ms. Evans. Well, I would first like to say that I
vehemently disagree--and I said this in my testimony--that coal
ash is similar to dirt. I think the statistics that Mr. Adams
has provided are extremely misleading, and I would like to
provide some supplementing information to indicate--to
illustrate this.
I have worked at numerous coal ash waste sites, some of
which are Superfund sites, where the data shows that coal ash
contains magnitudes more hazardous contaminants than is found
in the surrounding soil.
So you take the Town of Pines Superfund site where you
have--on playgrounds, I believe the arsenic approached, let's
say, 600 parts per million. I know they had 888 parts per
million in other areas. On the playground, at 600 parts per
million. That is nowhere near the average arsenic content of
soil, which should be around between 6 and 10.
So we don't have a substance that is like dirt. All coal
ashes are different, and not all coal ashes are going to be
extremely high in arsenic and radioactivity. But EPA has
found--let's take radioactivity. EPA has found that the average
coal ash has radioactivity of over 6 picocuries per gram. And--
--
Mr. Ruiz. How much radioactivity do you find in dirt?
Ms. Evans. One to three. So you have--and then you can get
much more. I have seen 14 in Mooresville sitting on top of the
dirt. I think we had over 8--8 to 9 picocuries per gram. So
this is not average dirt. This is--you know, that is already
almost 3 times the radioactivity that you find in dirt.
So I think we have--the real problem here with the
understanding of what is the threat from coal ash----
Mr. Ruiz. And so what are the health--what are the health
impacts?
Ms. Evans. So the health impacts, I mean, they are myriad.
And one problem with coal ash is that it has so many toxic
elements. And these toxic elements can work together. The
cumulative effect can be more than a single contaminant. So,
for instance, arsenic causes cancer. Radium causes cancer. And
about seven other coal ash contaminants cause cancer. You have
them all together. That is a cancer-causing material.
Mr. Ruiz. What are the effects on pregnant women and
children?
Ms. Evans. So, I mean, if you mention children and pregnant
women, the ingestion of toxic chemicals is much more harmful to
a fetus than it would be to an adult. A child playing in
contaminated dirt is going to be more sensitive to the
radioactivity or the arsenic or other contaminants. So surely
you have got more vulnerable populations----
Mr. Ruiz. More risk for stillbirths, spontaneous abortions,
malformations in children with chronic consumption of lead and
arsenic, could lead to cerebral damage, developmental delays,
not doing well in school, not really growing at the pace that
they can.
So I am not sure who here would want to have coal ash. Show
me--anybody raise your hands--if you would like to live next to
a coal ash dump. I don't think anybody would like to live next
to a coal ash dump. And the ash--the fine particle, too, are so
small that if the wind blows it, right, you breathe it, it goes
straight into your lungs.
What do you propose that we do with this coal ash, Ms.
Evans?
Ms. Evans. Well, the answer is--the part that can be
recycled into encapsulated products should be put into
encapsulated products that do not leach. But there is a big
difference between putting coal ash in a product, encapsulating
it, than using it as a unencapsulated material, such as a
structural fill, mine fill. I would posit that using it in the
sand trap would cause potential harm to inhalation of
particulates, whether it is just simply particulate matter 2.5
or the other hazardous contaminants of coal ash.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. I would point out to the gentleman that
lithium is one of the contaminants listed in Ms. Evans' chart,
and we certainly wouldn't want to encapsulate the Salton Sea.
I now recognize----
Mr. Ruiz. You made a point. Can I--can I----
Mr. Griffith. Yes, sir. It is only fair.
Mr. Ruiz. This is what is very important to understand, is
that the lithium extraction from brine, from geothermal, is in
a closed-loop circuit. So lithium doesn't get exposed to the
air, nor does dust--
Mr. Griffith. So it is encapsulated.
Mr. Ruiz. It is a filtration system, that you pull out the
filter, and then it--you know, you keep it. So it is not
exposed to the--to the air.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate that. It is encapsulated.
And I now recognize Mr. Latta of Ohio for his 5 minutes of
questions.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thanks so much for our witnesses for being with us today.
If I could start, Ms. Freeark, with you for some questions.
You had mentioned about, you know, the power needs that you are
looking at, and they increased because of--especially with the
data centers coming online. And we had hearings in our Energy
Subcommittee not too long ago where we had all the RTOs and the
ISOs here in the country before us. But they said the same
thing: We have to be producing more power in this country
because of, really, the influx of all of the data centers
coming online.
But at the same time, we can't be taking generation
offline. And it is--the estimations out there that are talking
about maybe in the future, it will probably be all coal, they
are looking at about 115 gigawatts going offline. But at the
same time, we need 150 gigawatts on top of what we are already
producing. So really, if that would happen, we are really,
really short.
So quick question. Do you know what your energy mix is for
the co-op?
Ms. Freeark. Congressman, we have had--so Arizona Electric
Power Cooperative owns and operates only one generating
facility where we have--traditionally, we had coal, natural
gas. We have implemented very large-scale solar and battery
energy projects. We have converted one of the coal units to
natural gas for back in 2017. And so we have one remaining coal
unit at our facility.
So we are--you know, we have been expanding and
diversifying our portfolio over time. But that dispatchable
resource of baseload generation coal is critical so that we can
continue to serve our members with affordable, reliable power.
And it ensures that we can have, you know, fuel on the ground.
That is a critical component of the coal unit, is that we can
have coal on the ground without intermittent pipeline issues,
intermittent renewable resources. So coal is critical. Although
we have backed down, as I have mentioned, the conversion of one
unit, that one remaining coal unit is critical for----
Mr. Latta. Well, let me ask this, then: With the new coal
combustion residuals requirements, how is that going to affect
your decisions in the future with that one remaining facility?
Ms. Freeark. So under the coal combustion residual rule, we
will continue to monitor postclosure--so if we had to close our
remaining coal unit, we would still have 30 years of
postclosure monitoring, closure of those facilities. So it
would be beneficial to AEPCO and its members to continue to be
able to operate that coal unit, responsibly disposing of coal
ash in our lined impoundments that have 30 years of operation
with, you know, groundwater monitoring. And so to prematurely
close those would cost in the tens of millions of dollars that
would be borne by rural end-use consumers.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
Mr. Glatt, do you believe the 2024 amendments strike the
right balance between environmental protection and operational
feasibility?
Mr. Glatt. One more time on that question?
Mr. Latta. Yes. Do you believe that the 2024 amendments
strike the right balance between environmental protection and
operational feasibility?
Mr. Glatt. I don't believe it does like it should. I think
there should be a little more acknowledgment of the work that
is done beforehand so the risk is pretty minor. I don't think
EPA has acknowledged that.
Mr. Latta. And let me follow up. I think the chairman of
the full committee was getting into this. You had stated that,
you know, that the Federal review approval is frustrating. It
is not rooted in sound science and law. Could you, in my last
50 seconds, maybe touch on that?
Mr. Glatt. Sure. Going through this whole process, we had
indications that our program was approvable. It went beyond
what EPA had required. But they said they would not approve it
because they had concerns regarding implementation.
We answered their questions through several different
rounds regarding implementation, and yet they wouldn't
approve--the frustrating part was they would not give any
rationale why they felt that the implementation wasn't there.
We felt that we went way beyond what EPA required and
showed the documentation, had the science, and yet there was no
approval. That is where the frustration came.
Mr. Latta. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, and I yield
back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the other gentleman from California, Mr.
Peters, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Peters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
A century of burning coal ash--or coal across the United
States has generated roughly 5 billion tons of coal ash, and
there is merit in examining how we can safely manage and even
repurpose coal ash. Reusing coal combustion residuals or coal
ash in concrete, drywall, or other applications can reduce
landfill use and even lower emissions relative to conventional
production methods so long as manufacturers take the proper
precautions. In San Diego, we have long incentivized the use of
low-carbon construction materials.
But as we explore the beneficial uses of coal ash, we can't
use them to justify extending the life of outdated and
expensive coal power generation.
Coal generation has declined by over 60 percent since 2008,
not as a result of government regulation but because it has
been outcompeted. Natural gas, wind, and solar are now the
cheapest sources of new electricity in most regions of the
country. Coal plants are aging, expensive to maintain, and
increasingly reliant on subsidies or taxpayer support to stay
online.
All of this evidence has made it clear coal has not
declined based on some conspiracy or clean energy bias but
because of well-documented market factors.
Additionally, arguments for using coal ash as a domestic
supply of rare earth minerals are unconvincing to me. The
concentration of rare earth materials in coal ash is far lower
than in commercially mined deposits. Despite years of research,
no commercial-scale rare earth recovery operation of coal ash
has proven technically or financially viable.
We are nowhere near being able to use coal ash as a
reliable domestic source of critical minerals, and there are
better options to shore up our supply chain. Investing in coal
ash as a rare earth source is a distraction from cleaner, more
financially viable solutions and an attempt to artificially
bolster the industry.
While recycling and reuse is an important solution for
existing waste stockpiles, we should not reverse engineer the
need to burn more coal. The goal should be to manage legacy
waste responsibly, not to prop up an unviable energy source.
We need to build our energy policy around an all-of-the-
above approach, an all-of-the-above approach that deals in
reality, one that provides the security and reliability we so
desperately need to meet rising energy demand.
Ms. Evans, to be clear, do any of the beneficial uses of
coal ash require that we continue burning coal, or can they be
supplied entirely from existing waste stockpiles?
Ms. Evans. They can be supplied from existing waste
deposits. There is so much waste--Mr. Adams said 2 billion, I
have heard the estimate 3 billion. There is an abundance of
coal ash that could be used, and it would never be necessary to
burn coal for those----
Mr. Peters. And you agree that coal generation has declined
primarily due to market competition from cheaper and cleaner
energy like wind, solar, natural gas rather than because of
regulations?
Ms. Evans. Absolutely. And that is what the experts say.
Mr. Peters. Is there any long-term scenario in which coal
becomes a competitive critical energy source again?
Ms. Evans. I don't see it. I mean, I see that the price of
wind and solar is dropping. It has shown itself to be more
reliable. The battery storage will be a faster solution than
the building of new power plants. And I don't see where coal
fits into that scenario.
Mr. Peters. OK. I appreciate it very much. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.--not here. No. There he
is. I missed him. I thought you would be on the top row, Mr.
Joyce. Mr. Joyce of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Griffith and Ranking Member
Tonko. Thank you to our witnesses for appearing here today.
For years, from Pennsylvania, I recognized that coal-fired
power generation facilities have worked in Pennsylvania and
throughout the entire United States, and they have worked to
properly manage coal combustion residuals, or coal ash. This
has long been done either through disposal and monitoring or
through beneficial uses, such as the making of concrete or
construction applications, as in drywall production.
With the EPA's finalized 2024 legacy CCR rule, electric
utilities will be faced with burdensome costs for sites where
coal ash has already been safely disposed of and environmental
concerns mitigated, and beneficial uses with programs that will
be subjected to harsh regulations despite the evidence that
they pose little or absolutely no environmental or health or
safety risks.
To start, I want to be clear on both the effectiveness of
current methods of coal ash disposal and the beneficial use.
Mr. Adams, in your written testimony you discuss how the
regulatory treatment of beneficial use has been impacted by
environmental organizations raising false alarms about the
supposed toxicity of coal ash. Can you clarify how coal ash is
safely used in other commercial applications?
Mr. Adams. Certainly. We know, from decades of use in
concrete, that this material performs, and it performs just as
expected. EPA itself ran a risk evaluation of this material and
found that there is no difference in performance of concrete
with fly ash and without fly ash. That was EPA's own work.
In addition, if you look at what EPA has done over the
years in terms of regulating coal ash, back in 1993 the EPA
made a determination that coal ash did not warrant treatment as
a subtitle C hazardous waste under RCRA based on toxicity. They
repeated that ruling again in the year 2000, both under
President Clinton and Administrator Carol Browner, that coal
ash did not warrant management under subtitle C as a hazardous
waste. And it was repeated one more time in 2015.
So if we hear all these claims of coal ash being hazardous
and toxic, EPA hasn't made that claim yet. And they have looked
at it, really, since 1980 when the Bevill Amendment was passed
declaring coal ash to be exempt from hazardous waste
management. So as we look at all these applications and we hear
all these claims, EPA has not found that to be the case.
Mr. Joyce. The 2024 legacy rule created a new definition:
CCR management units, or CCRMU. Mr. Adams, has the expansion of
Federal regulation to CCRMU potentially undermined
opportunities for beneficial uses? Beneficial uses that we talk
about, you just mentioned, with the use in concrete, I talked
about in drywall production--are we stifling innovation?
Mr. Adams. It is an interesting attempt--the 2024 rule has
a risk assessment, which is terribly flawed, to supplement its
claims in that rule. Beneficial use will be impacted by it, but
EPA has done a nice job of trying to draw fences around things
and create back doors, if you will, to restrict beneficial use,
and based on that flawed risk assessment.
Mr. Joyce. You also noted, Mr. Adams, in your remarks that
the EPA used flawed risk adjustment in justifying that role. I
think that is what you were just mentioning. Can you further
explain some of your major concerns with that risk management?
That risk assessment?
Mr. Adams. For example, it claims that arsenic is many,
many more times more dangerous than it ever has been before.
What changed? Nobody has been able to explain to us what
changed to make arsenic more concentrated, more of a danger
than it has been for decades and centuries, actually.
We run into things like that in the report that actually
give people rise for concern when there is really no change at
all that has happened there.
Mr. Joyce. From your testimony, both written and stated
orally, a Federal regulation which fails to consider State or
facility-specific characteristics and that imposes strict
regulations not based on any real finding of risk is not the
way to handle CCR. The EPA announced earlier this year that
they are reviewing this rule to determine what regulatory
relief is appropriate.
I look forward to that determination and to working with my
colleagues on this committee to ensure that electric utilities,
especially in rural areas that need that increased
electrification in America, are not burdened by this
unnecessary cost.
Thank you all for appearing today. My time has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize Mr. Auchincloss from Massachusetts for his
5 minutes.
Mr. Auchincloss. Thank you, Chairman.
I represent Brayton Point in Somerset, Massachusetts, which
formerly was the site of a coal-fired power plant, was going to
become the site and a clean energy hub for offshore wind
interconnection until the manufactured chaos from this
administration issued a moratorium on offshore wind and has
canceled that manufacturing opportunity.
Before it ceased operations in 2017 as a coal-fired power
plant, Brayton Point used lined landfills for coal ash. The
last of them are due for final closure this year.
Ms. Evans--first of all, thank you for joining us. Can you
describe how these proposed changes might affect Brayton Point
and surrounding areas?
Ms. Evans. Sure. Excuse me with the mic.
Brayton Point--and I know a little bit about this because I
have some history on the original Massachusetts DEP actions at
the site. Brayton Point had operated unlined coal ash ponds and
also oil combustion ponds. And so there is quite a bit of
contamination on the site, most of which was removed. However,
Brayton Point power plant continued to operate, continued to do
more waste disposal. And now there is still remaining
groundwater contamination.
That groundwater flows into Mount Hope Bay, which is a bay
shared by Rhode Island as well as Massachusetts. And it is a
valuable estuary for fish spawning and growth.
The new requirements will be very important to cleaning up
Brayton Point. So Brayton Point is an excellent example of a
very large power plant that, over decades, has produced waste,
some of which was placed in unlined ponds, now lined landfills
and other waste disposal areas at the site.
Mr. Auchincloss. And am I correct, ma'am, that we are still
showing excess arsenic and lithium and other chemicals in the
groundwater?
Ms. Evans. Yes. I believe so. That is what the groundwater
monitoring reports say. So what you have is it is obvious that
whatever cleanup that they did pursuant to a Massachusetts
order has not cleaned up the site in a way that makes it a safe
site for the citizens in your district, for the people of Rhode
Island, you know, for the fish in the estuary.
And the legacy rule is really meant to address that. The
legacy rule requires a power plant order to look at the site as
a whole and do a facility evaluation report where it will find
where are all those old disposal areas that are likely
contributing to the problem.
Mr. Auchincloss. And I believe that for Brayton Point there
could be as many as 12 of those----
Ms. Evans. Yes.
Mr. Auchincloss [continuing]. Coal ash dump sites that
would be newly regulated under the 2024 rule----
Ms. Evans. Right, which is not unusual because, you know, a
lot of these plants have been operating for almost 100 years.
Mr. Auchincloss. So in some ways, Brayton Point
encapsulates the benefit of this legacy rule in that it is not
just a go forward, it is also a look back, and as you said,
treat the site holistically to ensure that there is not
continuing groundwater contamination or discharge into Mount
Hope Bay.
Ms. Evans. Right.
Mr. Auchincloss. So do you believe the 2024 rule and its
faithful execution is critical to the complete and long-term
cleanup of the site?
Ms. Evans. It is absolutely critical. And it is critical
that we don't delay its execution. EPA was very late to the
game regulating coal ash in the first place. RCRA was passed in
1976, but it took them decades to get a Federal coal ash rule.
So we are way behind in stopping coal ash contamination.
And coal ash contamination groundwater keeps moving. How
much has it gotten into Mount Hope Bay? How much is in the
sediment? How much more will get in if industry is successful
in delaying the legacy rule?
Mr. Auchincloss. And can you just describe for my
constituents in Somerset and surrounding environs, what does
that groundwater contamination mean for them? What does it
affect for their quality of life?
Ms. Evans. Yes. I mean, it will be different at each site.
From the little I know about Brayton Point, I know that the
groundwater flows to the bay. So if that bay is an area where
young fish are, one will be the young fish not survive--will
be--less fish to eat and to enjoy. The fish that survive--a lot
of the coal ash contaminants like arsenic and selenium are
biocumulative, so those fish may be tainted and be unable to be
consumed.
In environmental justice areas or poor areas, you have
people who are subsistence fishermen, and they may not--there
might be public advisories, but they may eat the fish anyway.
Mr. Auchincloss. I am going to have to yield my time. Thank
you, Ms. Evans, for----
Ms. Evans. Thank you.
Mr. Auchincloss [continuing]. Your input on this.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields. I now recognize the
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to come to you, Mr. Glatt. Only 3 States
currently--Oklahoma, Georgia, and my home State of Texas--have
EPA-approved coal combustion residuals, CCR, permit programs,
meaning that these States--we have talked about this--rather
than the Federal Government oversee these programs. It is my
understanding that North Dakota is in line to become the fourth
State, should its approval be granted. Has that happened?
Mr. Glatt. They are in the process now, with a public
hearing scheduled for July 8th.
Mr. Weber. July 8th. OK.
Can you elaborate on exactly how this process has gone with
the EPA? How much time do you need? Yes.
Mr. Glatt. It has been very frustrating. We were led to
believe that we complied with all of the elements required, and
then there was always one more thing and one more thing. And we
got the feeling that they never had any intent to approve the
program.
Mr. Weber. Was that in the previous administration or the
current one?
Mr. Glatt. Previous.
Mr. Weber. Has it changed?
Mr. Glatt. It has now. They have looked at the program.
They said it is approvable. The previous administration said it
was approvable as well, but they always had one more thing to
deal with. Now we are going through the process, and we fully
expect that we will get approval.
Mr. Weber. So are you familiar with the phrase, ``It is
morning in America again''?
Mr. Glatt. Yes, I have heard that.
Mr. Weber. OK. I think a lot of people are.
Has North Dakota engaged with other CCR-authorized States
to learn best practices regarding that application process and
program--I guess, are you hiring out to them?
Mr. Glatt. Yes, we are in contact and conversation but
understanding that every State is a little bit different and
they approach it differently. Where we can find commonalities
and benefit from those other States, we adopt that. But we
understand that North Dakota is not Oklahoma, is not Texas, and
they do things for their own reasons, but we keep an eye on
what other States do.
Mr. Weber. So you can learn from, you know, each other,
basically.
Mr. Glatt. Correct.
Mr. Weber. OK.
Is it ``Free-ark''? Is that how you say that? OK. I am
coming to you next. Are you ready? OK.
According to Arizona Electric Power Cooperative's website,
the Apache generation station has a steam-generating unit
powered by coal. You are aware of that.
Ms. Freeark. Yes, sir.
Mr. Weber. In your testimony, you emphasized the importance
of affordable electricity, particularly given that one-third
of--how do you all say that? ``A-ep-co''?
Ms. Freeark. ``Ap-co.''
Mr. Weber. ``Ap-co'' was my next guess.
One-third of AEPCO's customers live below the Federal
poverty line. Can you share in further detail how this coal-
fired unit, as well as coal units nationwide, contribute to
keeping electricity rates affordable?
Ms. Freeark. As I mentioned before, our mission is to
provide safe, reliable, affordable electricity. As you pointed
out, a third of our member residential customers live below
Federal poverty line. It is hot in Arizona. So the summer heat
demands cause, you know, demand for reliability events,
partnered with potential wildfires.
So it is critical that we continue to be able to have that
baseload generation to be able to afford to--to be able to
provide affordable electricity that isn't, you know, subject to
the market so that our members can afford to keep the lights
on.
Mr. Weber. As I said to Mr. Glatt, so do you reach out with
some of your other colleagues in other different States? Is
there an organization of the co-ops, I guess?
Ms. Freeark. There is.
Mr. Weber. What is the name of it?
Ms. Freeark. We have on a--on the high level, basically, we
have the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. And
then within that we have different organizations, and one of
them is the National Rural Electric Environmental Association.
So we coordinate, collaborate on what is happening in all the
States.
Mr. Weber. Sure.
Ms. Freeark. What is working, what is not. And we also do
that within our own home State. We have all the Arizona
utilities, whether it is co-ops, public power, IOUs, we work
together to ensure that, you know, that we have sensible
regulation, that we can--you know, we may not always see eye to
eye, but we can come together in those times where it makes
sense to work with our regulators, work with, you know, work
with others that are--as they develop rulemaking.
Mr. Weber. In most of those meetings, I guess, you said you
coordinate and cooperate with them when you talk about meeting
with the regulators in other States. You are finding that
pretty much everybody wants to do the right thing for their
customers and the environment? Would you agree?
Ms. Freeark. I would agree with that.
Mr. Weber. And so I guess--I have got 19 seconds. So did
you find the same thing in the previous administration? Has it
lightened up a bit in this administration?
Ms. Freeark. The last administration, absolutely not. It
was block walls put up, zero communication. This new
administration, we have already been able to coordinate with
them and have those conversations.
Mr. Weber. Are you familiar with the phrase ``There is
morning in America''?
Ms. Freeark. Yes.
Mr. Weber. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Menendez, for his 5 minutes
of questioning.
Mr. Menendez. Thank you, Chairman.
We have to legislate for the realities of a changing
climate. We are here today in the midst of a historic heat wave
that has stressed our energy infrastructure, endangering the
health of millions of Americas. And it is caused in large part
by the greenhouse gases accumulating in our planet's
atmosphere. Greenhouse gas is disproportionately released by
the combustion of coal.
And today we are focusing on another harmful aspect of
burning coal: its residuals, coal ash. EPA has made important
strides over the last decade to regulate coal ash, but 91
percent of coal-fired power plants continue to leak toxic
radioactive pollutants into water that eventually comes out of
our kitchen tap. Meanwhile, climate change is accelerating and
intensifying natural disasters, sea level and groundwater rise,
and flooding, all of which worsen the risk of a spill and
increase the threat that these sites pose to our communities.
In my coastal district, we have low-lined coal ash
landfills in Jersey City that will become even more susceptible
to flooding and sea level rise over the coming decades. If
these sites, which previously showed evidence of contamination,
already pollute our community under normal circumstances,
another major weather event or a 6-foot increase in sea level
would cause catastrophic damage.
Ms. Evans, can you briefly describe how climate change
impacts coal ash management?
Ms. Evans. Thank you. And this is an important question
because coal ash dump sites are uniquely vulnerable to climate
change. Coal plants have to be built near water source, so they
are near the shorelines of lakes, rivers, and the oceans. We
know that these waters are rising. And in some instances,
groundwater is rising as well.
A couple of statistics. We have--74 percent of coal plants
have a landfill or a pond within a quarter-mile of the surface
water, and 57, almost 60 percent have a landfill or pond within
50--I am sorry--500 feet of surface water. So these units are
very, very close to water, and many, especially ponds, have
been built in the floodplains.
The risk is not hypothetical. We have had hurricanes,
Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas, that flooded coal ash
ponds, you know? So we know that the more intense storms can do
extensive damage to coal ash ponds and landfills and cause
significant releases.
Mr. Menendez. Right.
Ms. Evans. So the sooner we can get this ash out of the
floodplain to protect it from the sea rise and the intense
storms, the better.
Mr. Menendez. Right. And you see these once-in-a-lifetime
weather events, but they are changing, sort of, where they
are--what communities they are impacting, what States they are
impacting, right? So it impacts, sort of, how we think about
the management of these sites. And, perhaps, areas that have
not previously been impacted could be, and you could see really
harmful outcomes for those surrounding communities.
How does robust enforcement of coal ash pollution
regulations help mitigate these climate-related risks?
Ms. Evans. Well, the coal ash ponds that are poorly sided,
that are in floodplains, that have their ash in contact with
groundwater, need to be closed. And in many cases, they need to
have their ash removed and redeposited in a safe area in a
lined landfill or, you know, the ash may be used to create
encapsulated products, such as concrete.
But in no event should the ash be left at the shoreline.
And the CCR rule, the original 2015, requires the safe closure
of those sites.
Mr. Menendez. Right. And should Federal standards and
enforcement be strengthened to address the impacts we
anticipate from a changing climate?
Ms. Evans. I am sorry. Can you repeat that?
Mr. Menendez. Sure. Just yes or no: Should Federal
standards and enforcement be strengthened to address the
impacts we anticipate from a changing climate?
Ms. Evans. Yes.
Mr. Menendez. I agree. Yet, instead of taking commonsense,
data-driven action, the Trump administration is cutting staff
and funds at the EPA. It rolled back Federal requirements on
coal ash regulation enforcement, delegating authority to States
that have proven records of failing to meet Federal standards
as required by law.
In your view, will weakening EPA's ability to enforce
existing coal ash pollution standards intensify climate-related
risk at these sites and ultimately endanger the clean drinking
water that so many of our families rely on on? Just yes or no.
Ms. Evans. Yes.
Mr. Menendez. And to close out, I want to make sure that
the folks at home in New Jersey get a sense of what this means
for them. Can you touch on what increased groundwater
contamination would mean for families and communities that live
in proximity to coal ash waste?
Ms. Evans. If those communities use the groundwater for
drinking water, that can absolutely impact their health. That
can harm their health. For communities that don't yet use the
groundwater, the groundwater's an incredibly important
resource. And so if the groundwater is not currently being used
for drinking water, irrigation, that doesn't mean that it
should be poisoned and polluted by contaminants.
Mr. Menendez. I agree with you. Thanks so much. I yield
back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the other gentleman--or another gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Pfluger, for his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let's just follow up with that line of questioning, and I
will go to Mr. Glatt and Ms. Freeark. Are there communities
that are drinking contaminated groundwater because they are not
regulated appropriately, Mr. Glatt?
Mr. Glatt. No.
Mr. Pfluger. Yes, Ms. Freeark?
Ms. Freeark. No.
Mr. Pfluger. I mean, this is just insane that we are
sitting here talking about, you know, unregulated groundwater.
I mean, no, that is not the case. So that was not my line of
questioning, but I just--I couldn't help but correct the record
here that--is there a threat because of our regulatory posture,
Mr. Glatt?
Mr. Glatt. No. Based on the State program, there is not a
threat.
Mr. Pfluger. Talk to us about the expense. You have touched
on this today, but I want to get back to what will this rule do
in terms of cost and then in terms of effectiveness.
Mr. Glatt. As far as the baseline CCR rule and the State
adopting that, I don't see that as being a whole lot. I think
the concern is with the legacy rule of having to go back and
look at landfills that were appropriately closed that do not
pose a risk now.
We have the concern that if we had to go back in and
somebody saw the need to dig that back up, that would create a
greater environmental hazard than what they have today.
Mr. Pfluger. Yes, jJust can't get around ourselves for
making smart decisions on that.
Ms. Freeark, you know, let's go on the line of questioning
on cost. And we know that they are going to be significant.
They estimated the cost would be at a minimum $214 million per
year with only 53 million in benefits. That is the Biden
administration. And this ultimately impacts the ability to
provide energy to our communities.
So you noted in your written testimony that Arizona
Electric Power Cooperative is incurring significant expenses to
comply with the legacy rule and its deadlines. And again, you
have touched on this already today, but I want to make this
point. Can you describe some of the major expenses that this
rule has imposed? And do you think that these costs will
produce commensurate benefits on the other side of it?
Ms. Freeark. So far, as others have mentioned, there is a
laundry list of things that we have to do under the legacy
rule. So every single one of the steps incurs costs with
outside professionals, qualified professional engineers,
consultants that help.
We are a rural co-op. We have a very small staff, so we
can't--we don't have the bandwidth to perform it all ourselves,
so we rely on those outside resources. So you are talking about
contracting with ongoing support to do facility evaluation.
And when we talk about the facility evaluation, it is of
the entire site. We own 4,000 acres. So evaluation of the
entire site where--you know, we have the proper area, but you
are looking at in the entire site, going back to historical
records, any project, anywhere where you could have found that
CCR materials may have been used.
So that has taken us months and hundreds of thousands of
dollars to get through. That report is not yet done. We are in
the final completions of it.
But then, moving from there, then once you identify those
new classes of units that they identified in the rule, then you
will have to institute groundwater monitoring, public websites.
There is just a laundry list, again, of items that would have
to be included just to regulate something that--for instance,
again, like our facility, we have closed-in-place ponds that we
would have to, you know, look back, which is insane that you
are going to look back--those were closed in 2005--have not had
a impact to groundwater, human health.
And, you know, we are not near any surface waters. So we
have a really different geologic site condition. The risk, if
you measure the risk based on that, it is very different.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you.
Mr. Adams, some of my questions for you were already asked.
I will give you the last minute to tell the committee anything.
Any followup statements that you----
Mr. Adams. Yes, I think it is kind of interesting that we
have spent a great deal of time today talking about disposal
and disposal regulations and disposal impacts and all that kind
of thing and a lot less time talking about beneficial use and
the things that are really benefiting not only the construction
industry but society in general, in terms of greenhouse gas
reduction.
We are taking materials out of landfills and ponds,
returning those facilities to more palatable uses, for parks
and green spaces and things like that. We are doing a lot of
good things through beneficial use, but we spent a heck of a
lot more time today talking about things that have more to do
with disposal and less about beneficial use than we hoped. But
we would like to come back and reengage and talk more about
beneficial use.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. I thank the witnesses, and I yield
back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Landsman, for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Landsman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I agree. The beneficial use conversation is super
important. I suspect we can get closer to having a meaningful
conversation about that when we resolve some of the legitimate
questions about the leftover coal ash and how we manage that so
that it does not undermine public health. So I think I--I think
those are the concerns, obviously, that, you know, this
committee is in a position to resolve.
We know that this leads to some toxins that can get into
the air, into the drinking water, et cetera. And I do think it
is important to acknowledge that the unsafe disposal of coal
ash is something we have to take on. And the worry with the
administration at the moment is that the attempt to gut the EPA
and indiscriminately fire all kinds of people--I mean, part of
what government does is mitigate risk, right? That is why we
invest collectively, so that we can do all kinds of things,
knowing the Government is going to help mitigate risk. And that
is what my line of questions are as it relates to this
conversation.
Ms. Evans, the regulatory standards--which ones should be
strengthened or introduced to ensure that the coal ash is
managed safely?
Ms. Evans. It is essential that the coal ash rule complies
with the statute. And the statute, under subtitle D,
nonhazardous waste, requires that there be no reasonable
probability of harm. So the CCR rule in 2015 and 2024 generally
followed those constraints. I think the problem is not, right
now, do we need additional rules. Certainly, we can still close
some gaps. The problem is the administration and enforcement--
--
Mr. Landsman. Yes.
Ms. Evans [continuing]. Of the current CCR rule.
Mr. Landsman. So to that end, what are the most responsible
strategies to ensure--or prevent the contamination of air and
water? I mean, what would be the top two or three that matter
most?
Ms. Evans. Yes. And, you know, that is easy. That is a
question that could have been answered 50 years ago, 70 years
ago. When you have a waste that releases its toxins when it is
in contact with water, you put it in a safe, dry place above
groundwater, lined. Since all landfills eventually leak, you
want a leak detection system, and you want to be monitoring
that for all of the contaminants that are in the waste. And
when you find any leaks, you want it to be--to immediately
address them.
So, you know, this is not rocket science. We don't need new
technology to keep communities safe from coal ash. We just need
the utilities to follow the rules that we have already got on
the books. And we are not seeing that happen.
Mr. Landsman. Super helpful. That, to me, is also a
conversation we should have, which is, you know, where are we
doing that? Because it is very straightforward in terms of, you
know, the dry space, the lined--you know, lining that
contaminant and then having basic technology, and making sure
that the disposal is done in this way.
So as we move forward, I hope that is also part of the
conversation. Maybe we separate them out so we can talk about
the benefits separately from just making sure that we are
protecting people because it does--it is very difficult to get
to a conversation just about the benefits if there are
remaining questions around making sure people aren't dealing
with contaminated air, water. And obviously we would make--we
would be making this a lot easier if there wasn't this attack
at the EPA.
Yes, did you have--I have 38 seconds, so they are yours.
Ms. Evans. Yes. Let me make an important correction to my
answer, is that you asked what else does EPA need to do. They
absolutely need to prohibit the use of structural fill or
fill--or use of coal ash as dirt. And I apologize that I forgot
to say that.
Mr. Landsman. That is OK. Thank you.
Ms. Evans. Thank you.
Mr. Landsman. I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Evans, for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Evans. Thank you, of course, to the Chair, to the
ranking member, and to our witnesses for coming today.
First question to you, Mr. Adams. How much concrete does
the United States use versus some of our global competitors,
specifically China, on an annual basis?
Mr. Adams. How much concrete in terms of cubic yards?
Mr. Evans. Yes, in cubic yards or however you want--
Mr. Adams. We are about, I believe, about one-tenth of what
China uses.
Mr. Evans. Yes, so I have heard about the same, anywhere
from one-tenth to one-20th of what China uses.
And can you just speak very briefly to the environmental
standards that are in place around how we produce and use
concrete versus how China is producing and using concrete at 10
to 20 times the scale we are?
Mr. Adams. I have no knowledge of the Chinese market. I can
only speak to the U.S. market. The U.S. market is very much
committed these days to carbon reduction, to sustainable
business practices that include use of these kinds of materials
like coal ash and things like that, to reducing the amount of
Portland cement, which is very intensive in terms of
CO2 emissions.
So the cement industry and the concrete industry both have
roadmaps which are very, very similar to accomplish this carbon
reduction objective that they have. And in order to do that, an
important part of those roadmaps is the increased use of
materials like coal ash and reducing the amount of Portland
cement, which is very CO2 intensive, and causing the
carbon footprint of concrete construction to come down. We are
very committed to that. I don't see there is any indication
that I read anywhere that the Chinese market is interested in
that at all.
Mr. Evans. Yes, and thank you for that. And I would tend to
agree with that, you know. So I represent Colorado's 8th
Congressional District, north Denver suburbs up to Greeley,
Colorado, one of the fastest-growing areas in the country. And
so we have a massive footprint in our area dedicated to
producing the raw materials that build Colorado, to include a
lot of concrete and cement production in the area. And I know
that our producers are working as hard as they can because we
all want clean air, clean land, and clean water.
And we also have the technology these days to see where a
lot of the pollution is coming from in my area. Double-digit
percentages of pollution along the Colorado front range are
coming from China. And the fact is if we don't produce things
in the United States, it is not like we get suddenly clean air,
clean land, clean water. That production is going to go other
places, and we are still going to inherit the pollution of
that.
So thank you for all of the work that the concrete
association has done to make sure that we are being good
environmental stewards here in the United States, recognizing
that we are not in a vacuum, that there are other competitors
around the world who do not have the same commitment to
environmental or social responsibility that we have in the
United States.
And so I would like to hear you talk a little bit more
about specifically the topic before us today, using things like
coal ash or fly ash in the production of cement and then
ultimately concrete. Particularly for my area, that is a major
concern because of the housing shortage that we have. We know
that houses need foundations. Foundations are typically built
out of cement and concrete.
So can you talk about the process to bring that ash to the
market and how cement and concrete producers are in a position
to environmentally and socially responsibly use some of these
byproducts of energy production in the United States with, you
know, keeping in the back of our mind that our global
competitors don't have the same commitment to environmental and
social responsibility that we have?
Mr. Adams. Great question. I will try to answer it very
quickly here.
The industry is working hard on carbon reduction by using
one of the most important things, using supplementary
cementitious materials, of which coal ash is one. These are raw
materials which enhance the performance of cement that is added
to concrete. Currently, in terms of fly ash and coal ash, the
usage rate around the U.S. is about 15 percent of the total
cementitious material put into concrete.
In order to meet the goals of these roadmaps that I have
referred to, experts in this area estimate that we are going to
have to get the supplementary cementitious material content
from 15 percent to at least 35 percent. So that means we are
going to have to come up with new sources of materials to add
to concrete, to reduce carbon--the carbon footprint of our
construction. And that is going to mean we are going to need
things like more harvesting, a lot more harvesting, to feed the
market with these materials that are going to allow them to
make that goal a reality.
Mr. Evans. 20 seconds. Anything else you would like to add?
Mr. Adams. I would say that in terms of helping the
industry, finding ways to support beneficial use by harvesting
the material, adjusting deadlines for closure of facilities and
that kind of thing that are already operating, harvesting
operations, would be greatly helpful instead of causing these
facilities to close prematurely, leaving material in those
landfills and ponds that could be removed and put into concrete
and real beneficial use.
Mr. Evans. Thank you. Yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize
the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Carter, for his 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you to all of our witnesses for being here today.
I represent a district in Louisiana where families live in
the shadow of aging industrial facilities. And I know when we
talk about coal ash, we are talking about more than just
byproducts. We are talking about public health. Coal ash is a
radioactive waste product, and exposure has been shown to raise
the risk of cancer and other health problems.
And yet, what is strikingly absent from most of today's
testimony is any serious discussion about the health and safety
of the communities living near coal power plants and facilities
that use coal ash. We cannot ignore the human cost of these so-
called beneficial uses.
We should focus on reducing pollution at the source by
accelerating the transition to cleaner, cheaper, and more
sustainable energy, but instead the Trump administration is
pushing policies that force aging, inefficient coal plants to
continue operating regardless of the cost or the public health
issues.
If you want to talk about beneficial use, let's talk about
the benefit of clean air, safe water, and lower utility bills.
We owe it to our constituents to pursue an energy policy that
protects both their health, their wallets, and their families'
growth.
Ms. Evans, would you agree that low-income communities of
color are often disproportionately impacted by coal ash ponds?
Ms. Evans. Absolutely.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Why should the Federal Government
have strong rules if States have their own coal ash management
programs?
Ms. Evans. Well, States' coal ash management programs have
been shown to be ineffective and inadequate.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. How does the Trump
administration's recent push to eliminate State and Tribal
Assistance Grants impact the ability of States to maintain or
take delegated programs like coal ash management?
Ms. Evans. I think that Mr. Glatt would agree that a good
State coal ash program needs resources. So starving States of
resources needed to conduct inspections, launch enforcement
actions, do the technical evaluations needed in any oversight
of disposal, you know, requires trained professionals and lots
of resources.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Thank you.
Mr. Adams, in your testimony, you state that coal ash is
basically similar to regular soil.
Quick question: Would you move your family near a coal ash
detention pond? Would you drink groundwater that was impacted
by these ponds?
Mr. Adams. No, just as people would not move their family
near a municipal solid waste facility. You know, it is not
where you would move your family. In fact, in many cases----
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Why not? It is not safe? Is it not
safe?
Mr. Adams. It is just unattractive.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. It is unattractive. But many
people are forced to be in that situation, because they are
forced to because of their economies, because of their
situations, because of their economic--or the colors of their
skin.
So let's be real and let's be honest about where we are.
How would you feel--would you feel comfortable with coal ash
being used to fill, to use fill in your backyard?
Mr. Adams. It depends on what the application was and
what----
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Let's say you were planting
vegetables.
Mr. Adams. No, no, you can't say all----
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. Yes, I can.
Mr. Adams. No, you cannot.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. It is my time. Sir, reclaiming my
time. I am reclaiming my time.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman has reclaimed his time. You
have to stop answering.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. I am asking you a question, sir,
and you can answer it or you can choose not to.
Would you use coal ash to plant vegetables in your
backyard, yes or no?
Mr. Adams. No.
Mr. Carter of Louisiana. OK, thank you.
I find it hard to believe that we know what we know about
the impacts of our health, our home values, living near these
facilities.
Burning coal releases harmful pollutants in the air,
including particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulfide dioxide,
and heavy materials like mercury. These pollutants can lead to
respiratory illness, heart disease, neurological damage, and
even premature death.
Unlined ponds allow contaminants to leach into groundwater
and drinking water, with the ash sometimes becoming airborne as
toxic dust. Aging or deficient coal ash impoundments can fail
structurally, resulting in catastrophic floods of toxic sludge
entering neighboring communities.
America needs to move forward with clean power for the sake
of our communities and future generations instead of looking
for excuses to cling to the 19th century technologies.
Mr. Adams, surely you are aware that EPA has updated its
2024 study, yet your testimony, you cite findings from a 2000
and a 2012 report. The 2024 report assesses and amplifies the
harms of coal ash.
My time is expired, and I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentlelady from Iowa, Mrs. Miller-
Meeks, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here
today.
As a Representative from Iowa, I understand the critical
importance of striking the right balance between protecting our
natural resources and promoting practical, science-based
solutions to manage industrial byproducts, coal ash being a
prime example.
So today I am looking forward to a productive discussion on
how we can continue regulating coal ash safely and effectively
while supporting innovation and economic growth.
Mr. Adams, the 2024 legacy rule defines CCR management
units broadly enough to potentially regulate foundational
materials under buildings, roads, and even rail spurs.
Has ACAA documented examples of beneficial use projects in
which this overbroad definition created legal or financial
uncertainty, perhaps delaying or canceling investment?
Mr. Adams. We have not done specific detailing of the kind
of information that you are looking for. We are working on some
things to that effect, but we do know that basically what we
are looking at is some beneficial uses are OK inside the fence
line of the power plant, but now they want to make them not OK
outside the fence line of the power plant. What is the
difference?
These are the kinds of flaws that are in the 2024 rule in
addition to that risk assessment that need to be fixed and need
to be looked at more closely to make the rule effective and do
the thing it is supposed to do.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Rather than arbitrary and capricious, I
am insinuating from your comment.
Mr. Glatt, you testified that Federal reviewers submitted
recommendations, such as well placements, without visiting
North Dakota sites. In your view, what are the practical
consequences of remote, one-size-fits-all Federal assessments
that ignore site-specific geology, design, or hydrology?
Mr. Glatt. Well, without looking at the full site and
having a good appreciation of all those things you just
indicated, you can come up with erroneous conclusion or bad
design.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you.
Ms. Freeark, AEPCO sells over 90 percent of its fly ash for
beneficial reuse, reducing the amount of coal ash needing
disposal. However, the EPA's new definition of CCR management
units appears to threaten the viability of such practices by
expanding what qualifies as a regulated unit.
Could you elaborate on how this undermines the incentive to
beneficially reuse coal ash and whether the EPA provided any
justification in its risk analysis for this change?
Ms. Freeark. Congresswoman, for our facility, even under
the legacy rule, we would still be able to sell the fly ash. As
I mentioned, we only have one remaining coal unit that burns
coal, so our coal ash obviously over time has decreased. But we
do everything that we can to get as much of the fly ash into
spec for the beneficial reuse, which is adjacent to our
facility.
So nothing is handled on the ground. It is all sluiced over
there or the access is sluiced to our ponds. The material that
they take is sent over via pipe to their facility. So nothing
is ever touching the ground. It goes straight to silos, and
then shipped off site.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Mr. Glatt, how does your State's
periodic product testing regime ensure that beneficial use of
coal ash doesn't pose a risk to soil, water, or public health,
particularly in rural areas where ash might be used for haul
roads or land reclamation?
Mr. Glatt. We take a look at all the different ash
characteristics, make sure it doesn't leach the chemicals, the
compounds that were of concern.
We also look at the radioactivity of the material to make
sure it doesn't impart a negative impact that way. Once it
passes all those tests being within standards, then the product
is deemed safe for beneficial use.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. And Mr. Adams, you mentioned that the
EPA's coal ash risk assessment used to justify the 2024 rule is
significantly flawed.
Could you describe the primary errors or assumptions that
concern your association?
Mr. Adams. I think we can just start with the arsenic
claim, that the arsenic is much more intense than we previously
thought. I didn't see any science there to support that. It is
just a claim.
And we can go through the rule and come up with others in
there that are just as questionable. However, when you start
right there, you really have to wonder about if science has
been applied to all the others.
Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms.
Barragan.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When I saw the title of the hearing, I thought it was a
mistake. I looked at it and it said ``beneficial use
opportunities for coal ash,'' as if this toxic waste is a gift
to the hundreds of communities with polluted groundwater from
coal ash landfills.
The Energy and Commerce Committee, here in the
Environmental Subcommittee, is tasked with protecting clean air
and water. Instead, Republicans want to highlight how we can
promote the use of coal ash.
Here is what I have believed and seen the reality to be, is
over 90 percent of monitored coal ash sites contaminate
groundwater, and enforcement has been weak. And communities
that live near these sites often are low-income or they are
communities of color, and they bear the brunt of increased
health impacts.
Ms. Evans, I want to follow up on a conversation my
colleague started but ran out of time on. And that is, you
know, one of the witnesses next to you has cited the outdated
EPA assessment that coal ash is not hazardous.
Yet, a 2024 EPA assessment studied coal ash that is mixed
with clean surface soil in residential areas and found that
even a small amount of coal ash can result in elevated cancer
risk.
Can you speak to the health risk found in this assessment?
Ms. Evans. Yes. And I think that perhaps the objections are
both to the findings regarding radioactivity and arsenic.
Regarding arsenic, the EPA did a full new toxicogical
assessment of arsenic, which involves, you know, through peer
review and through many years, the assessment of new scientific
studies.
So it is not that arsenic has changed. It is that the
medical evidence of development of cancer, development of heart
disease has been recognized, and it has been recognized to
occur at much lower levels of exposure.
So, in fact, the conclusions of the EPA new IRA study was
that the cancer potency of arsenic is 21 times higher than
previously acknowledged, and that heart disease, which was not
acknowledged to be an impact of arsenic exposure, is evident by
the medical evidence. So these are science-based conclusions.
As for radioactivity, which was extremely troubling in the
EPA final risk assessment, you are right that EPA looked at the
average level of radioactivity in coal ash. They looked at what
does that mean when that radioactivity is used to fill at
differing concentrations.
So they weren't even looking at what I see routinely
happening in the field, is that you use coal ash as a
substitute for dirt, not that you are mixing dirt with the coal
ash. You know, I think the point of these companies is to use
as much coal ash as possible.
But in any case, the risk of--and one in 10,000 cancers is
sort of the hallmark limit whereby EPA gets very concerned and
starts to regulate. That has been exceeded by coal ash mixed
with soil at 11 percent when you have a certain amount of
radioactivity in the ash, and then it goes down from there.
But 11 percent of coal ash in the structural fill, you
know, is very unusual. It is usually much more. So it was a
very concerning conclusions on the part of the EPA as to the
safety of coal ash used as fill.
Ms. Barragan. And is it fair for the EPA to update their
science and understanding of this risk over 10 years?
Ms. Evans. I am sorry?
Ms. Barragan. Would it be fair for the EPA to update their
science and their understanding of the risk over 10 years?
Ms. Evans. Absolutely. And EPA has been doing that
routinely. I don't know what the--well, I know what the impact
of Trump's decimating the Office of Research and Development.
We won't have these updates.
But it is absolutely critical to keep looking at this as
the medical evidence indicates things are either less or more
dangerous.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you. You know, when constituents watch
these hearings and they hear a witness say something like,
``Well, coal ash is not toxic,'' that can translate to them as,
``Oh, this isn't harmful for me. Oh, this is actually OK for
me.''
Yet the EPA's own website--why does EPA regulate coal ash?
It says, ``Coal ash contains contaminants like mercury,
cadmium, and arsenic. Without proper management, these
contaminants can pollute waterways, groundwater, drinking
water, and the air.''
So I think if a constituent would read that would say,
``Hold on a second. Actually, this is something that is going
to cause me harm.'' So it is concerning when we have statements
like that made, and then they are misinterpreted from
constituents.
There is clear evidence that there is harm in this, and
that is why there is a need to regulate. And it is unfortunate
we are not talking about more of the harms as opposed to how
there is beneficial use, as if to suggest we should burn more
to get more coal ash.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Evans. Absolutely.
Mr. Griffith. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Soto, for
his 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, yesterday we saw legislation to keep unnecessary
dirty coal plants online. So the committee got to have a
wonderful, comprehensive update on the massive expansions we
have seen on solar, wind, hydro, and finally seeing some
improvements on nuclear as well. Of course, the natural gas, a
key bridge fuel that we will see for the foreseeable future.
And that is most of the makeup in central Florida.
So there is no need to keep open aging coal plants when
cleaner fuels are available. And it is not just about the air
pollution. We heard about it today. And it is not just about
climate change, which are two compelling reasons.
It is about the coal ash, 6.1 million tons of it in
Florida, and then 800 tons of it produced every day in my
family's native island of Puerto Rico. These are things that we
pay close attention to.
You look at the kilowatt hours. Solar, 6 to 10 cents a
kilowatt hour; nuclear, 3 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour; natural
gas, 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour; coal, 14 cents, because of
the carbon capture, the storage, all these costs associated
with it.
And that is why a lot of us are compelled to help stop the
bleeding, to make sure we keep the Inflation Reduction Act,
which some of these things are done away with in the One Big
Ugly Bill.
And so it would be great to hear from Ms. Evans. You know,
we see some of these systems, leachate collection systems that
aren't there, the landfills that are unlined.
What are the true costs of coal ash that isn't contained
for a community?
Ms. Evans. The cost can be extremely high. You look at the
town of Pines, which had a partially unlined landfill. Their
entire groundwater was contaminated. The town became a
Superfund site.
I am sure no one can sell or can't get the right price for
their house in Pines. And they had a double whammy in that coal
ash was used as fill throughout the town, in their backyards
and public playgrounds. And so they have contamination
throughout the town. The town was declared a Superfund site in
2001, and 24 years later they still have not finished the
cleanup.
So if you are talking about cost to a small community, you
know, that tears at the very fabric, you know, of their health,
their economy, and their well-being.
Mr. Soto. And we see in central Florida, we are working
with the Orlando Utility Commission to retire their last coal
plant. They have natural gas plants. They are boosting solar.
They are looking to also buy nuclear generation that is being
invested in. And so we see how we could get beyond this, but
then we are talking about literally millions of tons of coal
ash that is still there.
Now, Mr. Adams, I certainly agree with you that we need to
do something with a lot of these millions of tons of coal ash
left. Some of it will be that we have to store it, but I see in
my own district fly ash being used by Cemex to help with road
building. It is not the base material, but it does help, and
they sure use a lot of it.
And then it has been mentioned a little bit already, rare
earth metals, lanthanide, yttrium, scandium, and I am sure a
few other very complicated metals that are hard to pronounce.
And electronics, superconductors, lasers, aluminum alloys for
aerospace and sporting goods.
So if we were to use some of this coal ash--and I know it
is already starting to happen--for rare earth metals, what do
you think should be the best practices as we do that?
Mr. Adams. I am not familiar with what the extraction
technologies are and then the processing. You have got three
levels here. You have got the mining of the material, where you
are going to find the resource, and when you find it, how do
you extract it to the condition?
Mr. Soto. I mean through coal ash----
Mr. Adams. Through coal ash----
Mr. Soto [continuing]. Metals in coal ash.
Mr. Adams. It is finding the materials that are rich in
these particular elements. And on a periodic table, it is easy
to find them, 57 through 71. That is all you got to remember,
you don't have to pronounce them.
But in terms of coal ash, it is still being studied
closely. As I mentioned earlier in the hearing, no one has
found a good extraction technology yet that doesn't give us the
rare earth elements we are looking for without creating another
problem, another big problem.
So the research continues, and there are people out there
who think they may have an answer. I haven't seen it yet.
Mr. Soto. Well, you may have bipartisan support for efforts
like this, so I suggest you all keep working on it. And with
the example, fly ash, that is an example of one that is being
used right now in the district.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Griffith. The gentleman yields back.
Seeing no further Members to ask questions, I would like to
thank our witnesses for being here today.
Members may have additional questions for you. I remind the
Members that they have 10 business days to submit additional
questions for the record.
And I would ask our witnesses to do their best to submit
responses within 10 days of receipt of the questions from the
Members. And I appreciate that.
I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record the
documents included on the staff hearing documents list,
including some documents from Mr. Palmer that were added during
the hearing.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Griffith. Without objection, that will be the order.
And, without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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