Shame on the Senate if they pass this House Republican legislation. Evans said the bill would prohibit the EPA from ever setting a minimum standard for coal ash disposal. The bill “intentionally fails to define key terms and set deadlines, which would give states the flexibility to exempt units and allow the current norm of leaking units, poorly maintained dams and contaminated groundwater to continue unabated.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) started the motion necessary to have the bill considered by the Senate, but Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Environment committee, wrote a strongly-worded letter to colleagues opposing it. “I will oppose this bill at every turn because, if it became law, coal ash would continue to pose a grave threat to public health and safety,” her letter read in part. Boxer went on to invoke 2008′s Kingston, Tennessee tar ash spill, where about a billion gallons of liquefied ash from a Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant poured out over 400 acres, destroying and damaging homes, and contaminating rivers including the Emory and Clinch. A 2010 Physicians for Social Responsibility and Earthjustice report on coal ash named arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and selenium as typical components, which “can cause cancer and neurological damage in humans,” and harm and kill wildlife.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 14:40:44 +0000