October 19, 2011

Steve Souders

Office of Resource Conservation & Recovery

Mail Code: 5304P

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20460-0002

souders.steve@epa.gov

RE: 60-Day Extension Request to Respond to CCR NODA

Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2011

Dear Mr. Souders:

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) respectfully requests a 60 day extension of 

the comment period on EPA’s recently released Notice of Data Availability (“NODA”) pertaining to the 

coal combustion residuals (“CCR”) rulemaking, 76 Fed. Reg. 63252 (October 12, 2011). With a NODA 

seeking comment on such an enormous amount of information and involving a rulemaking of this 

magnitude and significance, it is unreasonable for EPA to limit the comment period to only 30 days. There 

is neither a statutory nor judicial deadline for issuing the final CCR rule -- and we fail to see any reason for 

providing the public with only 30 days to review, analyze and prepare comments on an array of new 

information that will be critical to EPA’s final decision in this highly complex rulemaking. 

NRECA is the national service organization for more than 900 not-for-profit rural electric utilities that 

provide electric energy to approximately 42 million consumers in 47 states or 12 percent of the nation’s 

population. Kilowatt-hour sales by rural electric cooperatives account for approximately 11 percent of all 

electric energy sold in the United States. NRECA members generate approximately 50 percent of the 

electric energy they sell and purchase the remaining 50 percent from non-NRECA members. The vast 

majority of NRECA members are not-for profit, consumer-owned cooperatives. NRECA’s members also 

include approximately 66 generation and transmission (“G&T”) cooperatives, which generate and transmit 

power to 668 of the 846 distribution cooperatives. The G&Ts are owned by the distribution cooperatives 

they serve. Remaining distribution cooperatives receive power directly from other generation sources 

within the electric utility sector. Both distribution and G&T cooperatives were formed to provide reliable 

electric service to their owner-members at the lowest reasonable cost.

In the comments NRECA filed on the original coal combustion residuals rulemaking, 75 Fed. Reg. 35128, 

we explained how cooperatives and the communities they serve will be disproportionately impacted by 

EPA’s CCR regulations because cooperatives have no choice but to pass increased environmental 

compliance costs directly on to their consumer-members. Further, because cooperative electric companies 

average fewer than seven consumers per mile of electric distribution line – the lowest density in the 

industry -- when compliance costs increase, they must be borne by fewer customers and applied to smaller 

sales volumes.
Regarding the NODA – cooperative generating companies have a very serious interest in insuring the 

accuracy of the data in the rulemaking record including the alleged damage cases in which a number of 

cooperatives are named. However, the average G&T has only about 180 employees and the burden placed 

on these companies to perform a meaningful review and develop comments in an unnecessarily brief 30 

days is just not reasonable.

Further providing for only a 30 day comment period unfairly compromises the rights of these companies to 

participate in the rule making process. It is inconsistent with the principles of Executive Order 12866

which directs federal agencies to afford the public a meaningful opportunity to comment on the 

development of proposed regulations, which in most cases should include a comment period of not less 

than 60 days. Executive Order 12866, Sec. 6(a). 

We understand that EPA has already signaled its strong preference to stick to a 30 day comment period but 

for the reasons stated above, NRECA urges EPA to reconsider this position and afford cooperatives and 

other small businesses a real opportunity to comment by extending the comment period to at least 60 days. 

Sincerely,

 - s -

James F. Stine

Energy and Environmental Policy

NRECA

cc: Suzanne Rudzinksi, EPA (Director, ORCR)