BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1594 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 1594 (Williams) As Amended August 22, 2014 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |57-21|(May 29, 2014) |SENATE: |23-12|(August 27, | | | | | | |2014) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 AB 1594 Page 2 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 AB 1594 Page 3 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 AB 1594 Page 4 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 AB 1594 Page 5 FN: 0005517