Witnesses from across the country yesterday urged the EPA to set strong public health standards for coal ash. In an all-day hearing in Arlington, VA, environmental and public health advocates and members of the general public asked EPA to regulate coal ash, a toxic byproduct of coal combustion that can contain arsenic, lead, and other toxics, as a hazardous waste.

Yesterday, President Obama recess appointed Elisabeth Hagen to serve as the USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety. Hagen was nominated by Obama in January 2010, but has had difficulty getting the Senate’s attention.

Hagen had been the chief medical officer at the USDA. Now, as undersecretary, she will head the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the regulator of meat and poultry products.

For someone who’s so concerned about federal regulation, John Boehner doesn’t seem to know very much about it.

In the latest issue of OMB Watch’s biweekly e-newsletter The Watcher, we have a story about public support for regulation juxtaposed against the inside-the-beltway push back against it. Business representatives and Republicans in Congress are leading the charge, maligning regulation and linking it to economic distress.

Leading Democrats and Republicans in the Senate came to an agreement today on pending food safety legislation, Congress Daily (subscription) reports. The compromise will be introduced on the floor as a managers’ amendment to replace the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) which was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee in November 2009. The managers’ amendment has not yet been released, but presumably, it largely resembles S. 510.