WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing titled A Decade Later: A Review of Congressional Action, Environmental Protection Agency Rules, and Beneficial Use Opportunities for Coal Ash.

“The expert witnesses we heard from today made it clear that coal ash recycling is a win-win for our environment and for American manufacturing,” said Chairman Griffith. “This hearing offered our members a chance to learn more about the impact of the EPA’s coal ash regulations. It’s time to unleash American technology and innovation to use coal ash in practical and responsible ways both in construction, and as an avenue for the large-scale recovery of critical materials.”

Watch the full hearing here.

Below are key excerpts from today’s hearing:

Congressman John Joyce, M.D. (PA-13): “For years, coal-fired power generation facilities have worked in Pennsylvania and throughout the entire United States, and they have worked to properly manage coal combustion residuals or coal ash. This is long been done either through disposal and monitoring or through beneficial uses such as the making of concrete or construction applications, as in drywall production. With the EPA’s finalized 2024 legacy CCR rule, electric utilities will be faced with burdensome costs for sites where coal ash has already been safely disposed of and environmental concerns mitigated and beneficial use programs will be subjected to harsh regulations despite the evidence that they posed little or absolutely no environmental or health or safety risks.”

Congresswoman Miller-Meeks (IA-01): “I understand the critical importance of striking the right balance between protecting our natural resources and promoting practical science-based solutions to manage industrial byproducts, coal ash being a prime example.”

Congressman Gabe Evans (CO-08): “We have a massive footprint in our area dedicated to producing the raw materials that build Colorado to include a lot of concrete and cement production in the area. I know that our producers are working as hard as they can because we all want clean air, clean land, and clean water. We also have the technology these days to see where a lot of the pollution is coming from in my area, double digit percentages of pollution along the Colorado Front Range are coming from China and the fact is, if we don’t produce things in the United States, it’s not like we get suddenly clean air, clean land, clean water, that production is going to go other places, and we’re still going to inherit that pollution.”

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