Perry visits NM, Interior wants your opinions–and EPA reaches out to states on clean waters rule & coal ash.
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry traveled to New Mexico last week, visiting Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
In southern New Mexico, Perry toured the Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office and the underground nuclear waste repository.
Last month, the president signed an executive order director Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review national monument designations made under the act since 1996.
Coal ash “flexibility” Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told states it’s working on guidance for state programs that will allow “flexibility” in permits for the disposal of coal combustion residuals, a byproduct from coal-fired power plants, which is also called “coal ash.” According to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt: EPA continues to support the environmentally sound recycling of coal ash.
Pruitt to guv’s: About those waters… According to a story in The Hill, Pruitt is also asking governors for their “input and wisdom” on which bodies of water within their states should (and presumably, shouldn’t…) be regulated under the Clean Water Rule.
Under that 2015 rule, which applies to navigable waterways and their tributaries, a tributary doesn’t need to be a continuously flowing body of water.
Fish and Wildlife Service lands.
Shooting ranges can also be found on public lands, including New Mexico’s.
One last thing on the EPA The agency just awarded more than $215,000 to the New Mexico Environment Department to support the state’s water pollution control program.