BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 1594
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          CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
          AB 1594 (Williams)
          As Amended  August 22, 2014
          Majority vote
           
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          |ASSEMBLY:  |57-21|(May 29, 2014)  |SENATE: |23-12|(August 27,    |
          |           |     |                |        |     |2014)          |
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           Original Committee Reference:    NAT. RES.  

           SUMMARY  :  Specifies that green material (i.e., yard trimmings  
          and untreated wood wastes) used as alternative daily cover (ADC)  
          at a landfill does not constitute diversion and shall instead be  
          considered disposal beginning in 2020.  

           The Senate amendments  :  
           
          1)Beginning March 2, 2015, require the Department of Resources  
            Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) to include an update on  
            the adequacy of funding from the Integrated Waste Management  
            Fund (Fund), including the oversight of solid waste that is  
            accepted at a disposal facility and is not subject to the  
            tipping fee.  

          2)Beginning January 1, 2020, require a local jurisdiction that,  
            as a result of not being able to claim diversion for the use  
            of green material as ADC, does not meet the state's diversion  
            requirements to include specified information in its annual  
            report to CalRecycle, including a plan to address the barriers  
            to achieving the diversion requirement.  

          3)Delete the requirement that CalRecycle make a determination  
            relating to good faith effort based on specified  
            considerations if a local jurisdiction will no longer meet the  
            state's diversion requirements as a result of not being able  
            to claim diversion credit for green material used as ADC.  

          4)Beginning August 1, 2018, require local jurisdictions to  
            include information on how the jurisdiction intends to address  
            the requirements of this bill and divert green material from  
            use as ADC in its annual report to CalRecycle.  

          5)Specify that nothing in this bill modifies, limits, or  








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            abrogates the authority of a local jurisdiction with respect  
            to land use, zoning, or facility siting decisions.  

          6)Define "green material" to have the same meaning as Title 27  
            of the California Code of Regulations, Section 20690(b), which  
            is defined as any plant material that is either separated at  
            the point of generation, or separated at a centralized  
            facility that employs methods to minimize contamination.   
            Green material includes, but is not limited to, yard  
            trimmings, untreated wood wastes, paper products, and natural  
            fiber products.  Green material does not include treated wood  
            waste, mixed demolition or mixed construction debris, manure  
            and plant waste from the food processing industry, alone or  
            blended with soil.  Processed green material may include  
            varying proportions of wood waste from urban and other sources  
            and shall be ground, shredded, screened, source separated for  
            grain size, or otherwise processed.

          7)Specify that "green material" does not include materials left  
            over after the material recovery process (fines) or processed  
            construction and demolition waste materials.  

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Senate Appropriations  
          Committee, this bill will result in potential revenue losses of  
          no more than $2 million, and possibly significantly less, to the  
          Fund as a result of excluding green material used as ADC from  
          the tipping fee.

           COMMENTS  :  According to the author, "California is one of the  
          only states to allow the use of green material as landfill cover  
          and the only state to count cover material as diverted - nearly  
          half the states in the country have banned the landfilling of  
          this material all together.  Eliminating this wasteful practice  
          will help the State meet its environmental goals, support the  
          growth of agriculture, and create jobs."

          Landfill operators are required to cover all solid waste at the  
          end of each day to control odors, vectors, fires, litter, and  
          scavenging.  Federal regulations require that cover consist of  
          six inches of earthen materials, but also permit operators to  
          use alternative measures, generally referred to as ADC.   
          Specific types of ADC authorized in California include:   
          geosynthetic fabric (tarps); sewage sludge; ash and cement kiln  
          dust; treated auto shredder waste (auto fluff); foam products;  
          contaminated sediment, dredge soils, foundry sands, and energy  








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          exploration and production waste;  compost materials; processed  
          construction and demolition waste; shredded tires; "spray  
          applied cementitious products;" and, green materials.    
           
           In December 1993, after more than a year of public discussion  
          and consideration, the California Integrated Waste Management  
          Board (CIWMB) adopted an ADC policy that would have allowed a  
          limited amount of ADC to count toward a jurisdiction's diversion  
          rate.  The implementation regulations for this policy were  
          rejected by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) on the  
          grounds that the CIWMB did not have the statutory authority to  
          limit ADC diversion credit.  This OAL disapproval prompted the  
          CIWMB to formulate a new ADC policy at its January 1995 meeting.  
           The new policy considered use of ADC to be diversion so long as  
          that use was approved by CIWMB and "not excessive."  This new  
          policy included limiting the ADC diversion credit to the  
          "functional equivalent" of the earthen material used as daily  
          cover.

          In February 1996, the Sacramento Superior Court ruled in Natural  
          Resources Defense Council vs. the California Integrated Waste  
          Management Board that the regulations were inconsistent with the  
          Public Resources Code Section 41780, which requires local  
          jurisdictions to "divert" solid waste from landfills through  
          source reduction, recycling, and composting activities.  The  
          court also ruled that no recycling activity at a landfill,  
          including material recovery and composting could be counted as  
          diversion. 

          AB 1647 (Bustamante), Chapter 978, Statutes of 1996, established  
          that local jurisdictions may use ADC as a strategy to achieve  
          their waste diversion goals.  This bill also specified that  
          recycling activities conducted at a landfill are considered  
          diversion.  

          In October 2013, CalRecycle released the Update on AB 341  
          Legislative Report:  Statewide Strategies to Achieve the 75  
          Percent Goal by 2020.  The report outlines a "new recycling  
          rate" to measure progress toward the 75% goal, which will not  
          include "beneficial use of waste-derived materials at  
          landfills," including green materials used as ADC.  The report  
          is clear that the new measurement system will not affect how  
          individual jurisdiction's diversion rates are calculated.  

          While a large number of jurisdictions use green materials as  








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          ADC, only 11 of the state's 416 jurisdictions would drop below  
          their required diversion rate if green materials used as ADC no  
          longer counted as diversion.  In order for CalRecycle to pursue  
          enforcement action, it would have to determine that the city or  
          county was also failing to make a "good faith effort" to meet  
          the state's diversion requirements.  

          In 2012 approximately 1.6 million tons of green material was  
          used as ADC.  Use has gradually decreased since 2005, when it  
          peaked at approximately three million tons.  

          CalRecycle is tasked with diverting at least 75% of solid waste  
          statewide by 2020.  Currently, organic materials, including  
          green waste, make up one-third of the waste stream  
          (approximately 11 million tons) and food continues to be the  
          highest single category of disposal at over 15%.  CalRecycle is  
          also charged with implementing its Strategic Directive 6.1,  
          which calls for reducing organic waste disposal by 50% by 2020.   
          According to CalRecycle, significant gains in organic waste  
          diversion are necessary to meet the 75% goal and to implement  
          Strategic Directive 6.1.  Recycling technologies for organic  
          waste include composting, anaerobic digestion, and other types  
          of processing that generate renewable fuels, energy, soil  
          amendments, and mulch.

          Recycling organic waste provides significant greenhouse gases  
          (GHG) reductions over landfilling.  Composting and other  
          organics processing technologies, including anaerobic digestion,  
          reduce GHGs by avoiding the emissions that would be generated by  
          the material's decomposition in a landfill.  Landfill gas is  
          generated by the decomposition of organic materials such as  
          food, paper, wood, and green material.  Fifty percent of  
          landfill gas is methane, a GHG that is 21 times more efficient  
          at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.  While most modern  
          landfills have systems in place to capture methane, significant  
          amounts continue to escape into the atmosphere.  According to  
          the Air Resources Board's GHG inventory, approximately seven  
          million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent are released  
          annually by landfills.  That number is expected to increase to  
          8.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2020.
           

          Analysis Prepared by  :    Elizabeth MacMillan / NAT. RES. / (916)  
          319-2092 









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