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

sou ders.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 pe riod 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 p ublic 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 ene rgy 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 cooperativ es. 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 n o 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

indu stry

-- 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 r ecord including the alleged damage cases in which a number of cooperatives are named. However, t he 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 bri ef 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 dire cts 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)