Ed Markey: “I thank you. Just 3 days before Christmas in 2008, the coal ash impoundment--and ``impoundment'' is just another word…”

“I thank you. Just 3 days before Christmas in 2008, the coal ash impoundment--and ``impoundment'' is just another word for giant swimming pool--burst in Kingston, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion gallons of toxic sludge that blanketed the nearby Emory River. That toxic stew that flowed out, a billion gallons into the river, destroyed homes and 300 acres of surrounding land, creating a Superfund site that could cost up to $1.2 billion to remediate. Since this incident, the EPA has identified 49 other giant pools of coal ash across the country that are designated as high hazard. {time} 1220 This means that if these impoundments were to fail, then it's not just the land that would be damaged, but human life would likely be lost. This Republican bill purports to be a solution to what happened in Tennessee. It claims to create standards for these giant pools that would ensure a TVA catastrophe won't happen again. But in fact it excludes safety requirements such as just accounting for earthquakes or surface erosion. And even worse, the very minimal requirements that are included in this bill only apply to new impoundments there are built starting 3 years after this bill is enacted. That's right. Nothing even starts for 3 years. And it's got to be brand new. So more than 430 impoundments that we know of and are in use today are not even going to be covered by this bill. And they have been built by old standards, not by the new standards.…”