Following a failure of the dike at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee which received national attention, the Obama Administration announced it would re-evaluate regulation of coal combustion residuals (CCR) or coal ash.  

The Administration’s key decision was whether to regulate CCR under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) as

Through out the long and contentious election process the focus of the debate was getting America back to work.  Much of the debate centered on tax policy and budget cuts.  However, the President was accused of "over-regulation" which Mitt Romney argued cooled the economic recovery.

As part of the debate over regulation, environmental regulation was

In perhaps the biggest environmental decision in decades, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld all aspects of EPA’s complex regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  Each piece of EPA regulation was controversial, yet the Court validated the overall approach paving the way for future action by EPA. 

Flashback several years ago, when the Obama Administration stated

Under increasing pressure from the Courts, EPA announced on June 14th its proposed revision to the federal air quality standard for fine particles (microns less than 2.5).  The last standard was 15 ug/m3 which was established in 1997.  EPA is now proposing to lower the standard somewhere between 12 and 13 ug/m3. 

Back in 2009, the Court

It is no secret that EPA and its wave of recent and forthcoming regulations have stirred up much angst among Republicans in Congress. Many industry groups argue that EPA’s rulemaking, especially its anticipated announcement of a much stricter ozone standard, will have a devastating impact on our fragile economy.

While plenty of bills have been floated since