Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt told business advocates the agency will reconsider a rule utilities worry could force more coal-fired power plants to close.
Pruitt was responding to a petition sent by the Utility Water Action Group (UWAG), urging the Trump administration to rescind its “Effluent Limitations Guidelines” for coal-fired power plants.
UWAG argues the regulation will “cause negative impacts on jobs due to the excessive costs of compliance – which were grossly underestimated by EPA – and regulatory burdens forcing plant closures.” UWAG said EPA underestimated the rule’s costs and withheld records about the rulemaking from utilities who would have to comply with the rule, which the agency estimates could cost up to $2.5 billion a year.
“To an unprecedented extent, the Agency withheld fundamental information purporting to justify the Rule, UWAG argued, adding that included “pages of the record that demonstrably were not entitled to confidential treatment.” The EPA said in legal filings it withheld records to protect confidential business information.
Pruitt said EPA would reconsider the ELG rule based on UWAG’s concerns.
President Donald Trump promised to lessen regulations on coal mines to put miners back to work.
Aside from arguing EPA improperly withheld data on how they came up with the rule, plaintiffs argued the agency didn’t perform proper testing to see if requiring coal plants to install new equipment would meet federal pollution guidelines.
Environmentalists fought to keep the rule in place, and Pruitt can expect legal challenges if EPA tries to repeal the ELG rule.
“Trump claimed he wanted EPA to go ‘back to basics’ and focus on clean air and water in his Administration, but one of the first actions by his EPA Administrator is an attempt to gut an important water pollution safeguard,” Hitt said.
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