Analysis - The Institute for Southern Studies

Others take a different view on how standard-setting organizations will react. Most notably, a US Green Building Council representative has
been quoted in the New York Times as saying that LEED incentives for using fly ash in concrete would remain in place, even under an EPA
hazardous determination. If the Green Building Council (along with EPA) continues to recognize fly ash as an environmentally beneficial
substitute for Portland cement, EPA believes that the use of this material is unlikely to decrease solely because of “stigma” concerns.
In addition, Congress directed government agencies to increase their purchase of recycled-content products. Specifically, section 6002 of
RCRA requires EPA to designate products that can be made with recovered materials and to recommend practices for buying these products.
Once a product is designated, “procuring agencies” 138 are required to purchase it with the highest recovered material content level practicable
if they spend more than $10,000 a year on that item. EPA’s federal Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG), requiring the use of fly ash
in cement for federally funded projects, would remain in place. Thus, any federal, state, or local agency carrying out federally funded
construction projects would continue to be required to give a preference to fly ash as a Portland cement replacement.
Finally, many state governments have argued that their statutes or regulations prohibit the use of hazardous wastes in their state beneficial use
programs, and therefore that, if EPA lists CCR as a hazardous waste (even if only for disposal), their use would be precluded in those states.
EPA has reviewed the regulations of 10 states with the highest consumption of fly ash and/or cement and concluded that while these states do
not allow the use of hazardous waste in their beneficial use programs, CCR that are beneficially reused will remain Bevill-exempt solid wastes,
or in some cases, would not be considered wastes at all and thus, the continued use of CCR under these programs should not be affected by the
proposed CCR rule. For EPA’s summary of 10 state government CCR beneficial use regulations, see Appendix K12. For the above reasons,
this RIA presents the increased future CCR beneficial use (Scenario #1) as the “base case.” However, this RIA monetizes both scenarios (i.e.,
induced increase and induced “stigma” decrease) using the following 10-step method.
Step 1. Project Future Annual Tonnage CCR Generation
To estimate the levels of CCR beneficial use, the first task was to project the future annual tonnage of CCR generated by the electric utility
industry. The amount of CCR is likely to increase proportionally, as utilities comply with new Clean Air Act requirements. Not reflecting this
proportional increase, this RIA relied on the EIA future forecast for coal burned by the electric utility industry. 139 As displayed in Exhibit 5C-
6 below, the EIA data extends out to the year 2035. However, to remain consistent with the other cost and benefit estimates, this RIA extended
this trend out to the year 2061 based on regression-fit extrapolation using the following first-order regression of coal burned as dependent
variable against year as independent variable:
138 Procuring agencies include all federal agencies, and any state or local agency or government contractor that uses appropriated federal funds.
139 Source: Based on 2007 to 2035 annual short tons coal consumption by electric power sector forecast data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Year-by-
Year Reference Case Tables (2008-2035): Table 15 Coal Supply, Disposition, and Prices” from the report “Annual Energy Outlook 2010 Early Release,” December 14,
2009 at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo. The EIA report presents a midterm projection and analysis of US energy supply, demand, and prices through 2035, based on the
EIA’s National Energy Modeling System. Further information on the EIA’s projections is available at
159