Curbside pickup may not be available yet, but legislation passed Friday by the U.S. House would make disposing of toxic coal ash just about as easy as taking out your household trash.

While the Senate is unlikely to pass H.R. 2273, the bill would defeat U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of coal ash by treating it as municipal waste, and therefore controlled by individual state standards. That means in many states coal ash would only need to be put in landfills that are lined to protect groundwater, monitored for water contamination, and controlled for dust, according to the Washington Post.

The preemptive legislation comes as the EPA is considering stricter regulations in the wake of the December 2008 coal ash spill which dumped more than 1 billion gallons of fly and bottom ash over 300 acres in Kingston, Tennessee. Regardless of that tragedy, many lawmakers in favor of the bill—which passed 267-144—see the loosened standards as an economic necessity.

“The results of EPA’s regulations would have been devastating on the effects of jobs, higher utility rates at home, and cripple a very successful emerging biproducts industry,” the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s environment and economy panel, John Shimkus (R-Ill.), told the Post.

Supporters of the bill also pointed out that the EPA can step in whenever states don’t want to or there’s a violation of the Clean Water Act. Still, environmental groups are incensed by the bill, which they say could ultimately lead to higher levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, antimony, and thallium in the groundwater, according to a Greenwire article.

“It is true that the bill requires monitoring and potential corrective action at these sites if they eventually exceed the drinking water standards in effect today,” Environmental Integrity Project Director Eric Schaeffer told Greenwire. “But that's closing the barn door after the horse is out and invites industry to design to a less stringent standard in the first place, gambling that contaminants don't materialize or aren't picked up by monitoring.”

That’s far from a safe bet if the Tennessee Valley Authority's actions in the 2008 spill are any indication. The authority—a federal agency that operates 11 coal burning power plants in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky—has a long history of engineering and safety concerns and issues with transparency and accountability, according to multiple reports that surfaced after the spill.

The White House, which opposes the bill, pointed to the management of the Tennessee spill as a “stark reminder of the need for safe disposal and management of coal ash,” in a statement issued October 12.

“[The legislation] is insufficient to address the risks associated with coal ash disposal and management,” according to the statement, “and undermines the Federal government’s ability to ensure that requirements for management and disposal of coal combustion residuals are protective of human health and the environment.”