EPA Proposes Coal Ash Revisions: Why “More Flexibility” Puts More on Your Plate
If you manage compliance at a facility that handles coal ash, the EPA’s latest proposal probably reads like good news: looser national rules, more room to make site-specific decisions, fewer one-size-fits-all mandates.
Read it again.
On June 12, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a broad set of revisions to its federal coal ash rules and reopened the public comment period on a long-stalled federal permitting program. The headline is flexibility. The fine print is responsibility — and much of it shifts onto you. In this article, we break down what is actually changing, why the “flexibility” framing can mislead a busy compliance lead, and how to get ahead of the rule before it is finalized.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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What is coal ash, and why does the EPA regulate it?
Coal combustion residuals (CCR) — commonly called coal ash — are the byproducts left behind when coal-fired power plants burn coal. They can contain contaminants such as arsenic, mercury, and lead.
Because those contaminants can migrate into water supplies, the EPA regulates coal ash disposal under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the federal law governing solid and hazardous waste. The goal is straightforward: keep what is in the ash out of the groundwater and surface water around the site.
The current framework dates to 2015, when the EPA first set federal disposal requirements for surface impoundments (the ponds where ash is often stored) and landfills. It has been revised several times since.
What the EPA is actually proposing
According to the EPA, the proposal would revise several parts of the CCR program at once, touching:
Surface impoundments and landfills — the units where coal ash is stored or disposed.
Groundwater monitoring — how facilities detect whether contaminants are escaping.
Closure and post-closure activities — how units are shut down and maintained afterward.
Beneficial use provisions — the rules for reusing coal ash in products such as concrete.
The connective thread is a move toward site-specific permitting decisions. The EPA wants a new permitting pathway that would let regulators handle certain groundwater monitoring, corrective action, and closure requirements through individual permits rather than relying only on uniform national standards. It is also proposing to allow health-based alternative groundwater protection standards for certain constituents under approved permit programs.
In the EPA’s framing, this is about fit. The changes reflect a commitment to “restoring American energy dominance, strengthening cooperative federalism, and accommodating unique circumstances at certain CCR facilities,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in an Agency news release, adding that they are meant to “increase transparency and promote resource recovery while continuing to protect human health and the environment.”
A second track: the federal permitting program returns
Alongside the revisions, the EPA reopened comment on a federal CCR permitting program first proposed in 2020 but never finalized.
Here is the structure. Under the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act, states can seek EPA approval to run their own coal ash permitting programs. Where a state has no approved program — and in Indian Country, which generally covers tribal lands and certain areas under tribal jurisdiction — the EPA may administer a federal program instead.
Several states have already secured approval, including Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, and North Dakota. The proposed federal program would fill the gaps elsewhere. The EPA says fresh input is warranted because more than five years have passed since the original proposal, and its CCR program has changed meaningfully since.
Flexibility is not the same as less work.
Here is where many organizations will misread the moment.
When a requirement moves from a uniform national standard to a site-specific permit, it does not get easier. It gets more individualized, and the job of justifying each decision lands on the facility. A health-based alternative groundwater standard is not a lighter obligation — it is a number you now have to support with site data, defend in a permit application, and prove you are meeting year after year.
The reality is that flexibility raises the documentation bar rather than lowering it. Uniform rules are easy to point to. Site-specific permits have to be built, evidenced, and maintained by you.
Environmental groups are watching that shift closely. The proposal is “part of the administration’s overall effort to take EPA out of the business of protecting the environment, leaving the coal industry and coal-friendly states to police themselves at the expense of human health and the environment,” said Gavin Kearney, an attorney with Earthjustice, in a press release. Whatever your view of the policy, the practical signal for compliance teams is the same: more discretion at the site level means more scrutiny of how you used it.
Why the gap between “documented” and “operational” persists
Most facilities already have procedures for groundwater sampling, closure, and recordkeeping. The trouble is that having a procedure and operating by it are not the same thing.
Procedures drift. A monitoring protocol lives in a PDF on a shared drive while the field crew works from an older printout. Two sites under the same operator follow two versions of the “same” closure process. When a regulator asks for the evidence behind a permit decision, it takes days to assemble what should take minutes.
That gap is what a controlled standard operating procedure (SOP) system is built to close. Platforms in this category — ForgeSOP among them — keep one current, approved version of each procedure, tie the supporting monitoring data and sign-offs to it, and make the whole record retrievable on demand. When compliance hinges on a site-specific permit, that single source of truth is the difference between an audit-ready file and a scramble.
How to get ahead of the coal ash changes
You do not need to wait for the rule to finalize. While the proposal is open, you can get ahead of risk with a few proactive moves:
Read the proposal against your own sites. Map which of your units — impoundments, landfills, monitoring networks — each proposed change would touch.
Submit a comment before June 29, 2026. The comment period is your formal channel to flag the site-specific realities the EPA says it wants to accommodate.
Inventory your current SOPs. Identify every groundwater monitoring, closure, and recordkeeping procedure a site-specific permit would put under the microscope.
Close the version-control gaps. Make sure each site runs from one approved, current procedure — not a patchwork of drafts.
Build the evidence trail now. Treat your monitoring data, corrective actions, and approvals as a living, audit-ready record, not a binder you assemble under deadline pressure.
Frequently asked questions
Does this proposal weaken coal ash protections?
That is contested. The EPA frames it as commonsense flexibility and resource recovery; environmental groups argue it could let facilities and states police themselves. Because the rule is not final, the practical answer depends on what survives the comment period.
What should my facility do right now?
Comment if the changes affect you, and tighten the documentation and SOPs behind your groundwater, closure, and permitting obligations so you are ready either way.
The bottom line
The coal ash framework has changed many times since 2015, and it is changing again. Whether these revisions are finalized as written or reshaped by public comment, the direction of travel is clear: more decisions will be made at the site level, and more of the burden of proving them will sit with you.
The takeaway: do not read “flexibility” as “less work.” Read it as a prompt to get your procedures, data, and evidence in order now — so that whatever the EPA finalizes, you are already audit-ready.
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