Say It Ain't So Already

America For Sale — Going, Going, Gone

October 24, 2011 at 1:07 PM Leave a comment

So, Senate Republicans and Democrats have finally found something they can agree on — coddling the energy industry, polluting our air and giving us cancer:

Five Republican and five Democratic senators, mostly from coal-rich states, introduced a bill that largely mirrors recently passed House legislation to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating disposal of coal ash for the first time.

The bill, whose main sponsor is Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., would block the EPA rule and instead let the states regulate the ash like municipal solid waste. Last week the House passed a highly similar bill fronted by Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va.

The EPA has proposed to classify coal ash under federal hazardous-waste management law, or let states regulate it as a non-hazardous waste. The proposed rule comes in the wake of coal-ash facility spills, including one in Kingston, Tenn., in 2008 in which 1 billion gallons of ash-containing liquid flooded the nearby area.

For more on the horrors of coal ash, watch this, posted by Tennessee Riverkeeper:

Entry filed under: America for Sale, Corporatocracy, Energy, Nature, The Environment, Weather, Etc.. Tags: .