Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities; Legacy CCR Surface Impoundments; Correction

<RULE> ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY <CFR>40 CFR Parts 9 and 257</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EPA-HQ-OLEM-2020-0107; FRL-7814.1-04-OLEM]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2050-AH34</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazardous and Solid Waste Management System: Disposal of Coal Combustion Residuals From Electric Utilities; Legacy CCR Surface Impoundments; Correction</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) is taking direct final action to correct errors and clarify several provisions published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 8, 2024. This May 8, 2024 rule (Legacy Final Rule) established regulatory requirements for legacy coal combustion residuals (CCR) surface impoundments and CCR management units, among other things, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective on May 16, 2025 without further notice unless EPA receives adverse comment by March 17, 2025. If EPA receives adverse comment, the Agency will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public about the specific regulatory paragraph or amendment that will not take effect. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> EPA has established a docket for this action under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OLEM-2020-0107. All documents in the docket are listed on the <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> website. Although listed in the index, some information is not publicly available, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy form. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically through <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Frank Behan, Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, Materials Recovery and Waste Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, MC: 5304T, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 566-0531; email address: <E T="03">behan.frank@epa.gov,</E> or Taylor Holt, Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, Materials Recovery and Waste Management Division, Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, MC: 5304T, Washington, DC 20460; telephone number: (202) 566-1439; email address: <E T="03">Holt.Taylor@epa.gov.</E> For more information on this rulemaking, please visit <E T="03">https://www.epa.gov/coalash.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Why is the EPA using a direct final rule?</HD> EPA is publishing this rule without a prior proposed rule because EPA views this as a noncontroversial action and anticipates no adverse comment since the amendments merely correct errors in the regulatory text and conform the regulatory text to the decisions articulated in the Legacy Final Rule preamble. However, in the “Proposed Rules” section of this <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication, EPA is publishing a separate document that will serve as the proposed rule to adopt the provisions in this direct final rule if adverse comments are received on this direct final rule. The Agency will not institute a second comment period on this action. Any parties interested in commenting must do so at this time. For further information about commenting on this rule, see the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section of the proposed rule document. If EPA receives adverse comment, EPA will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public about the specific regulatory paragraph(s) or amendment(s) that will not take effect. The corrections that are not withdrawn will become effective on the date set out above. EPA would address all public comments in any subsequent final rule based on the comments and new information submitted in response to the proposed rule. In light of the narrow purpose of this rule to conform the regulatory text to the final actions described in the Legacy Final Rule, EPA is only soliciting comment on whether the changes in this direct final rule conform the text to EPA's stated intent in the Legacy Final Rule preamble. EPA is not reconsidering, proposing to reopen, or otherwise soliciting comment on any provisions of the Legacy Final Rule itself. For the reader's convenience, EPA has provided a background description of individual provisions in the Legacy Final Rule in several places throughout this preamble. These descriptions do not reopen the underlying described provisions, but merely explain the context to inform the public of the basis for this action's technical corrections. In addition, for the convenience of the reader, EPA is revising and republishing §§ 257.75 and 257.100 in their entirety, which means that the regulatory text presented in this action is a combination of revised content (discussed in this preamble) and unchanged, republished content. The Agency is not reconsidering, proposing to reopen, or otherwise soliciting comment on the unchanged, republished content of these sections of the regulatory text. EPA will not respond to comments submitted on any issues other than those specifically identified in this action, and such comments will not be considered part of the rulemaking record. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. General Information</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Does this action apply to me?</HD> This rule may be of interest to electric utilities and independent power producers that fall within the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 221112. The reference to NAICS code 221112 is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather provides a guide for readers regarding entities likely to be regulated by this action. This discussion lists the types of entities that EPA is now aware could potentially be regulated by this action. Other types of entities not described here could also be regulated. To determine whether your entity is regulated by this action, you should carefully examine the applicability criteria found in § 257.50 of title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations. If you have questions regarding the applicability of this action to a particular entity, consult the persons listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. What action is the Agency taking?</HD> EPA is correcting errors and conforming the regulatory text to the decisions articulated in the Legacy Final Rule published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on May 8, 2024, which established regulatory requirements for legacy CCR surface impoundments and CCR management units (CCRMU). In addition, EPA is making a number of revisions to clarify the final requirements, such as consolidating the compliance deadlines for CCRMU into a single section and providing a deadline for the initial fugitive dust plan for CCRMU at facilities without a regulated unit. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. What is the Agency's authority for taking this action?</HD> EPA is publishing this rule under the authority of sections 1008(a)(3), 2002(a), 4004, and 4005(a), (d) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1970, as amended by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), as amended by the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA) and the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act of 2016, 42 U.S.C. 6907(a), 6912(a), 6944, 6945(a) and (d). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Background</HD> On April 17, 2015, EPA issued national minimum criteria for the disposal of CCR as solid waste under subtitle D of RCRA (80 FR 21302) (2015 CCR Rule or CCR regulations). The 2015 CCR Rule, codified in subpart D of part 257 of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations, established regulations for existing and new CCR landfills, existing and new CCR surface impoundments, and all lateral expansions of these CCR units. The 2015 CCR Rule also imposed requirements on inactive surface impoundments at active facilities but exempted inactive surface impoundments at inactive facilities. On August 21, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated and remanded the provision that exempted inactive impoundments at inactive facilities from the CCR regulations. <E T="03">Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, et al.</E> v. <E T="03">EPA</E> ( <E T="03">USWAG</E> ) 901 F.3d 414 (D.C. Cir. 2018). On May 8, 2024, EPA published the Legacy Final Rule regulating inactive surface impoundments at inactive facilities (legacy CCR surface impoundments or legacy impoundments) under 40 CFR part 257, subpart D. (89 FR 38950). In addition, the final rule established requirements to address the risks from solid waste management activities involving the direct placement of CCR on the land that was exempt from regulation under the 2015 CCR Rule. This included inactive CCR landfills, and CCR surface impoundments and landfills that closed prior to the effective date of the 2015 CCR Rule; the final rule refers to these newly regulated units as CCRMU. The Legacy Final Rule added a definition for legacy CCR surface impoundments, CCRMU, among other terms. It also established the regulatory requirements applicable to legacy CCR surface impoundments and CCRMU, which largely consist of requiring compliance with certain existing CCR regulations, along with tailored compliance deadlines. On November 8, 2024, EPA published a direct final rule to correct three errors in the Legacy Final Rule. In addition to taking action to correct inadvertent deletions of existing regulatory text in part 257, subpart D, the direct final rule made clear that the effective date ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 101k characters. 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