Statement on utilities’ request to roll back coal ash and greenhouse gas protections

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2025

CONTACT
Dan Radmacher, Media Specialist, (540) 798-6683, dan@appvoices.org 

In a letter sent to newly confirmed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin earlier this month, a group of utilities, including Duke Energy, asked for the EPA to roll back coal ash regulations and greenhouse gas limits on coal- and gas-fired power plants.

The rules referenced in the letter were finalized by the Biden administration in April 2024 and include a rule to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants and a coal ash rule that extends cleanup requirements to hundreds of old coal ash dumps across the country. Together, these rules force power plant owners to address pollutants that are harming people’s health and fueling climate change. The more stringent requirements should have spurred utilities in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and elsewhere to rethink plans to replace aging coal power plants with methane gas and instead embrace the economic opportunity provided by renewable energy and the health benefits associated with cleaning up fossil fuel pollution.

Statement by North Carolina Program Manager Ridge Graham:

“This is a shameful but entirely foreseeable request from Duke Energy and other utilities. Duke’s framing of coal ash ignores the harm that the concentrated toxic heavy metals cause to the hard-working rural and suburban communities that live where Duke and other utilities have built these irresponsible and unsafe impoundments. Elementary schools and daycares across North Carolina that have used coal ash for structural fill have since excavated the ash in order to make playgrounds safer for children.

“Additionally, many of these impoundments are held up by old, earthen dams that are susceptible to failure — which has resulted in catastrophic damages. Undoing these rules, which were unsuccessfully challenged in court, will further delay the cleanup process and make it more expensive and difficult in the future. Communities nationwide should receive the same benefits as those in the Carolinas who fought for strong state laws and agreements to clean up contaminated drinking water from Duke’s impoundments.”

Statement by Virginia Campaign Coordinator Matt Allenbaugh:

“We hear so often in Southwest Virginia from people who are struggling with high utility bills. Their bills are unaffordably high not because there are too many regulations, but because electric utilities can pass through the entire cost of the fuels they burn to produce electricity to customers. This shows up on customers’ monthly bills as a fuel adjustment clause. It is disingenuous of these companies to cite the cost of electricity as a reason to rescind these regulations when doing so would extend the life of coal plants that are already uneconomic. These utilities could invest in lower-cost wind and solar, which has no fuel cost to pass along, but instead want to keep on burning coal and gas, more of the same technology that caused the high rates in the first place.”