August 10,201 1 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Water Docket 

Mail Code: 4205M 

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW 

Washington, DC 20460 

Attn: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0667 

Dear Administrator Jackson: 

We are pleased to provide these comments on the proposed Environmental Protection Agency 

rulemaking published in the Federal Register on April 20,2010.' The proposed rule would 

require power plants and other industrial or manufacturing facilities to minimize adverse 

environmental impacts associated with the operation of cooling water intake structures (CWIS). 

The proposal will affect virtually every power plant in the country and could have significant 

adverse economic, environmental, and energy consequences. Thus, we believe it is important for 

EPA to take a measured approach to the rulemaking, ensuring that any final rule includes 

sufficient flexibility and that the benefits of any requirements it imposes are commensurate with 

the costs. We believe that there is more EPA can do to achieve these objectives. 

The proposed rule would require most electric generating facilities and many manufacturing 

facilities that use cooling water to meet an array of new requirements, even though these 

facilities have been minimizing adverse environmental impacts under state-issued Clean Water 

Act permits for years. Given the long history of state regulation in this area, the proposed rule 

appropriately gives the states primary responsibility for making technology decisions regarding 

how best to minimize entrainment of aquatic organisms at affected facilities. This approach 

recognizes the importance of site-specific factors, such as the composition of aquatic 

populations, source water characteristics, and facility configuration and location. Consideration 

of factors like these is vital in determining the extent of any environmental impacts, defining the 

range of available solutions, and evaluating the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of such 

solutions. 

Unfortunately, EPA has not adopted a similar approach to minimizing the impacts of 

impingement. - In contrast to the approach applied to entrainment, EPA is proposing to adopt 

uniform national impingement standards that have not been demonstrated to be widely 

achievable and that, in fact, many facilities may not be able to meet. This approach to 

impingement takes the technology determination out of the states' hands, and provides no credit 

for impingement reduction technologies that have already been approved by the states as best 

technology available. 

'National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System - Cooling Water Intake Structures at Existing Facilities 

and Phase I Facilities; Proposed rule," 76 Fed. Reg. 22,174. 

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER 
Instead, the rule should provide an approach to impingement and entrainment that allows for 

simultaneous consideration of unaddressed adverse impacts, if any, and gives state 

environmental regulators the discretion to perform site-specific assessments to determine the best 

technology available for both impingement and entrainment. This would allow consideration of 

a range of factors that vary on a site-by-site basis, such as the cost of a specific technology at a 

facility and the likely benefits of that technology, given the unique mix of species in the water 

body and other site-specific factors. This approach would also provide consistency, allowing 

permitting authorities to develop holistic solutions to the related issues of entrainment and 

impingement. 

EPA has proposed a rule that, by its own estimate, would impose costs more than twenty times 

greater than estimated benefits. Notably, EPA's cost estimate does not include the cost of 

controls to address entrainment. Given the wide disparity between the costs and benefits 

associated with imposing a national impingement standard, we believe that permittees should be 

able to select from a full range of compliance options that would minimize adverse 

environmental impacts, as warranted, while accounting for site-specific variability including 

benefits and costs. Furthermore, given the inherent variability of how technology will perform at 

each site, EPA should focus on simply identifying beneficial technology options rather than 

setting rigid performance standards. In addition, any facility that already employs closed-cycle 

cooling, including the use of cooling ponds or other impoundments, should be considered 

compliant. 

The proposed rule as presently crafted could result in premature power plant retirements, energy 

capacity shortfalls, and higher costs for consumers. These results would not be helpful to our 

efforts to restore the nation's economic health and a private sector capable of robust job creation. 

Therefore, we Wher urge you to modify the proposed rule to ensure-that any new requirements 

will produce benefits that are at least commensurate with, if not greater than costs, and will 

maximize the net benefits of the options available, consistent with President Obarna's Executive 

Order No. 13563. 1 

iIiL -- 

Mike Ross (AR) 
Bill Owens (NY) 

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Leonard Boswell (IA) 

Tim Huelskarnp (KS) 

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Larry Kiksell (NC) 

Tim Scott (SC) Mike McIntyre (NC) 

Brian Bilbray (CA) Tom Latharn (IA) , A 

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Leonard Lance (NJ) 
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Rick Crawford (AR) 

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Bill Cassidy (LA) Dennis Ross (FL)