The  US  Environmental  Protection  Agency's decision to revise its coal plant wastewater rule 

may be "too little, too late" to  affect the trend toward more coal plant retirements, an industry 

observer said Tuesday. 

The  EPA  filed  a  motion  Monday  asking  the  US  Fifth  Circuit  Court  of Appeals to hold in 

abeyance  litigation  over  two  aspects of the EPA's final rule, "Effluent Limitations Guidelines 

and Standards for the Steam Electric Power Generating Point Source Category," pending the 

EPA's  rulemaking  regarding  two  of the six waste streams from power plant (Case No. 15-60

821). 

In particular, EPA Administrator E. Scott Pruitt on Friday sent a letter to representatives of the 

Utility Water  Act Group and the US Small Business Administration, which petitioned for revisio 

n of the power plant wastewater rule. 

In  the  letter,  Pruitt  said  he  has  "decided  that it is appropriate and in the public interest to 

conduct a rulemaking to potentially revise the new, more stringent Best Available Technology 

Economically Achievable effluent limitations and Pretreatment Standards for Existing Sources 

in the 2015 rule that apply to bottom ash transport water and flue gas desulfurization wastewa 

ter." 

This letter was attached to Monday's filing by the EPA at the Fifth Circuit. 

Coal  and  certain power industry advocates have blamed more stringent environmental rules 

for  accelerated   retirements  of  coal-fired  power plants,  including   some  that  have  been 

considered premature. 

From 2012 through mid-2017, more than 53 GW of coal-fired capacity has retired, according 

to  the S&P Global North American Power Plant Databank, and another 22.2 GW is expected 

to retire by the end of 2022. 

"This  is  basically  a  case of 'too little, too late,'" Eric Smith, associate director of the Tulane 

Energy  Institute  in  New  Orleans, said in an email Tuesday. "While it may ease some of the 

pressure  on coal  resulting from earlier regulatory overreach, it will not be enough to overco

me  the  innate economic disparity between coal-fired power generation and that associated 

with [combined-cycle gas turbine] units." 

Casey Roberts, general counsel of the Sierra Club, an intervenor in the case, said Tuesday 

that  "it's hard to say" how the court would likely rule on the EPA's motion to hold the overall 

case  in  abeyance  while  the  EPA  revised  its  rule regarding two of the six relevant waste 

streams. 

"In our view ... the EPA's  proposed  division of the case is so unworkable" that litigation over 

the remaining issues in the rule could not proceed, Roberts said, adding that her group inten

ds to file a brief by Friday opposing the EPA's motion. 

Regarding the new wastewater rules' impact on coal plants, Roberts said the cost of complia

nce "is so small in comparison to other expenses" that the rule, as it stands, "was not going t

o  have  an impact on retirements," but the rule, if it stands "will have huge benefits for water 

quality, given that coal plants are the No. 1 producer of toxic water pollutants in the country." 

"That's why it's so egregious that the rules haven't been updated since 1982," Roberts said.