By Kennedy Maize
The Trump administration so reveres what the president calls “America’s beautiful clean coal,” that it is proposing to weaken Environmental Protection Agency rules on disposing of the dirtiest part of what is an indubitably dirty fuel: the toxic ash coal leaves behind when burned.
On April 9, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced what it hyped as “several revisions to the federal regulations governing the disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCR) and the beneficial use of CCR.” The EPA news release put the announcement in the context of a program “To Advance U.S. Energy Dominance,” another Trumpian refrain.
The EPA news release bragged that the new rules “would promote resource recovery, allow for site-specific considerations in permitting, provide regulatory relief while continuing to protect human health and the environment, and ensure continued transparency. The proposal would also encourage beneficial use, potentially reducing the need for disposing of CCR, set protective and uniform standards for CCR storage piles, and decrease the use of new natural resources.”
Upon diving into the proposed rule itself, a somewhat different story emerges. EPA’s summary of the rule notes that it would “Modify or remove three of the criteria that facilities with legacy surface impoundments closed prior to November 8, 2024, must currently meet to be eligible for the deferral from complying with the CCR unit closure standards until site-specific decisions are made by permit authorities.”
The proposal would further “exempt from the CCR regulations in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 257 certain structures primarily used to dewater CCR waste that facilitate disposal of the CCR elsewhere,” and “rescind all CCR management unit requirements and accept comments on alternative approaches that would include revisions to the existing CCR management unit regulations.”
To those outside the EPA and industry orbit, the new rules constitute a green light for electric generators using coal to reduce their attention to and costs associated with managing coal ash disposal sites, primarily ash ponds, preventing them from devastating surrounding lands and waters.
Appalachian Voices, a group with offices in North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, which has long followed the course of regulation of toxic and dangerous coal ash, commented, “The EPA’s actions roll back key parts of the 2015 and 2024 ‘Coal Combustion Residuals,’ or CCR, rules, which were the first federal regulations on coal ash storage and cleanup.
“The sweeping changes reflect an industry wishlist of rollbacks for weakening and rescinding standards for closing hundreds of unlined coal ash ponds and dry ash dumps, weakening protections for safe reuse of coal ash and delaying groundwater contamination monitoring, cleanup, closure and reporting deadlines.”
The regional environmental group’s complaints are not empty handwaving over a hypothetical threat. The group’s Bri Knisley commented, “Ninety-one percent of coal plants have contaminated groundwater with toxic chemicals above federal safety standards, according to industry data.”
In 2023, EPA described the problem: “Coal ash is a byproduct of burning coal in power plants that, without proper management, can pollute waterways, groundwater, drinking water, and the air. Coal ash contains contaminants like mercury, cadmium, chromium, and arsenic associated with cancer and various other serious health effects.”
The largest industrial accident in U.S. history was the December 22, 2008 collapse of a dike in the coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s 1954-vintage, 1,400-MW Kingston coal-fired plant, the largest coal plant in the world when it went into service. The failure of the ash pond sent some 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the nearby Clinch River, where the plant is sited, and the Emory River, destroying houses and farm structures in the wake.
The disaster eventually cost TVA (and its customers) in excess of $1 billion to clean up, which wasn’t completed until 2015, when the push for federal regulation of coal ash ponds began in earnest. It also may have caused severe health problems for TVA and contractor workers involved in the cleanup.
There is no dispute that cleaning up legacy coal ash disposal sites is expensive under the current regulations. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported this month that Georgia Power has told state regulators that cleaning up its coal ash ponds across the state will cost $8.5 billion, a $500 million increase since its last estimate. The Southern Co. subsidiary said it has already spent $2 billion cleaning up 29 coal ash ponds at 112 sites across the Peach State.
EPA, at industry urging, has been targeting the coal ash rules since early in the second Trump administration. In March 2025, the agency said it would take “swift action” on giving states sole control over coal ash disposal. In September EPA told Wyoming the state could take over regulation of coal ash, quickly following up in North Dakota.
In December, EPA halted ongoing enforcement of the coal ash rules. Then came this month’s action that, said the New York Times, “would scrap many of them altogether.”
In order to turn its proposal into a final rule, EPA says it “will accept comments on this proposal for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. In addition to accepting written comments, EPA will hold an online public hearing. EPA will provide more details about the public hearing soon.” The agency has set April 15 (2:00-2:45 PM) and 16 (11:00 a.m.- 11:45 AM) for online webinars, but without a link address.
If EPA issues a final rule, which is likely, litigation will almost certainly follow.