With a handful of Democratic votes, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill Wednesday that limits the EPA’s ability to regulate coal ash and says coal ash residue deserves little more scrutiny and regulation than municipal trash.

Instead of giving the Environmental Protection Agency the mandate to regulate coal ash, the bill puts the onus on states to set up a program to deal with the issue. EPA would provide oversight. The bill passed by a 35-12 vote, with six Democrats joining the GOP.

As iWatch News has reported, coal ash's metals have poisoned water supplies, damaged ecosystems and jeopardized the health of nearby residents. EPA has faced stiff resistance in trying to regulate the material as hazardous waste, led by coal-supported politicians such as one of the bill's biggest proponents, David McKinley, R-W.Va.

"I'm going to defend the coal industry all across America," McKinley said Wednesday. "We cannot afford any further attack in this war on coal."

The bill's most vocal detractor, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said it was pushed too fast and without a proper hearing.

"There are differences between municipal solid waste and the kind of waste we're regulating," he said during the bill's markup. "We haven't really had the chance to engage fully on this legislation, with EPA. This is a major piece of legislation. I'm not sure it's going to be effective."

Waxman called for more time to improve the bill before it goes to the House floor for a vote.

In its newest spending proposal for the EPA, the House appropriations committee included a section that forbids the agency from using federal dollars to regulate coal ash. The move had environmental groups calling foul and saying Republicans were trying to hide pet legislation in a must-pass appropriations measure.

Sabrina Mislevy is tired of the odors, the way they “hit” her as she drives by the blue-tinted lake, the way they burn her nose. Like many of her neighbors, Mislevy has grown weary of living near the nation’s largest coal ash pond, Little Blue Run, which straddles the Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio state lines.

In Little Blue Run and beyond, coal ash, waste from the production of electricity, has fouled water supplies and endangered public health. “We want action,” said Mislevy, of Georgetown, Pa., explaining why she has joined some 200 other area residents in launching legal challenges against FirstEnergy Corp., the owner of Little Blue Run.

Her community is just one across the country pursuing legal challenges against coal-ash ponds, landfills and pits — a grassroots onslaught stoked, in part, by slow regulatory action by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Last May at Little Blue Run, residents laid the groundwork for a potential citizens’ suit against FirstEnergy, sending a notice of intent to sue. Calling themselves the Little Blue Regional Action Group, they accused the company of operating its 1,000-acre ash pond “in a manner that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.” In December, residents sent another notice to FirstEnergy alleging “additional significant and ongoing violations,” including dirtying a creek that flows into the Ohio River with arsenic and selenium — toxic constituents found in coal ash.

A FirstEnergy spokesman, Mark Durbin, calls the residents’ claims “wholly without merit.”

The pending action and others come as the federal government weighs how to regulate coal ash, one of the nation’s largest refuse streams at 136 million tons a year. Two years after unveiling a plan to regulate coal ash disposal for the first time, the EPA has delayed the rules.

Owners of one of the nation’s largest impoundments of the often-toxic byproducts of burning coal must do more to protect residents from groundwater contamination and stop accepting waste by 2016, under an agreement with Pennsylvania regulators.

The pact focuses on FirstEnergy Corp.’s impoundment, known as Little Blue Run, in southwestern Pennsylvania on the West Virginia border.

Pennsylvania’s complaint and settlement, finalized Friday, came 59 days after environmental groups filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue, alleging that dangerous substances were seeping from the impoundment into the water supply.

The groups filing the notice — the Environmental Integrity Project and Public Justice — praised the state Department of Environmental Protection’s action. But they say the settlement came after the agency for years denied the existence of contamination. Indeed, state officials made such claims when the Center for Public Integrity highlighted problems at the site in 2010.

The agency declined an interview request, but said in a written statement, “We believe this will not only make major strides in environmental projects for that area, but also bring peace of mind to many residents who have expressed concerns about the Little Blue Run impoundment.”

Environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court Thursday over the EPA’s failure to regulate disposal of toxic coal ash.

“Politics and pressure from corporate lobbyists are delaying much needed health protections from coal ash,” Lisa Evans, a lawyer with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, said in a statement. “As we clean up the smokestacks of power plants, we can’t just shift the pollution from air to water and think the problem is solved. The EPA must set strong, federally enforceable safeguards against this toxic menace.”

Coal ash is the collective term for the solid remnants left over from the burning of coal at more than 500 power plants nationwide. It contains compounds such as arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury, which have been linked to cancer, birth defects, gastrointestinal illnesses and reproductive problems.

A 2009 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity revealed the havoc that coal ash has wreaked near ponds, landfills, and pits where it is dumped. Even the EPA has identified 63 “proven or potential damage cases” in 23 states where coal ash has tainted groundwater or otherwise harmed the environment. But critics say no meaningful federal regulations have been put in place.

The issue gained renewed attention after a dam holding billions of gallons of coal ash collapsed in eastern Tennessee in December 2008, destroying houses and water supplies and dirtying a river. Following the spill, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson pledged to set federal standards.