ALEC’s Vision of Pre-Empting EPA Coal Ash Regs Passes the House

[deminks]

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11473/alec’s-vision-pre-empting-epa-coal-ash-regs-passes-house

The U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment on April 18 to the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012 (HR 4348) that would effectively pre-empt the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating coal ash, the waste from coal burning plants. About 140 million tons of coal ash are produced by power plants in the United States each year. There are about 1,000 active coal ash storage sites across the country.

According to the EPA, the ash contains concentrations of arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and other metals, but the coal industry has claimed there is less mercury in the ash than in a fluorescent light bulb. However, the EPA found in 2010 that the cancer risk from arsenic near some unlined coal ash ponds was one in 50 -- 2,000 times the agency’s regulatory goal. Additionally, researchers from the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice, and Sierra Club have documented water contamination from coal ash sites in 186 locations. The new bill would strip the EPA’s authority to regulate the ash and hand it over to the states.

The coal industry and its allies have been pushing several levers to stop the EPA from regulating coal ash, including passing resolutions through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

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One of ALEC's major corporate underwriters is Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal company in the world. In 2010, the company sold 246 million tons of coal and had total revenue of $6.9 billion. Peabody Coal has a seat on ALEC's corporate board (its "Private Enterprise Board&quot . Peabody also received ALEC's Private Sector Member of the Year Award in 2011. In addition, Peabody served as a "Chairman" level sponsor of ALEC’s 2011 Annual Conference, which in 2010, equated to $50,000. Peabody has not only bankrolled ALEC's operations, but it has also contributed to ALEC's so-called "scholarship" funds in the past, which pays for the travel expenses of legislators to attend ALEC conferences, where they rub elbows with Peabody execs and vote behind closed doors with corporate lobbyists.

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Why do I get the feeling we are only scratching the surface with this ALEC information?