BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Session SB 742 (Hertzberg) - Solid waste: diversion. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Version: April 6, 2015 |Policy Vote: E.Q. 7 - 0 | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Urgency: No |Mandate: No | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Hearing Date: May 18, 2015 |Consultant: Marie Liu | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: SB 742 would raise the requirement for each state agency and large facility to diver 50% of its solid waste from landfills to 60% by January 1, 2018. Fiscal Impact: Unknown costs and cost pressures, potentially in the millions of dollars, from the General Fund and various special funds, to a limited number of state agencies and facilities to increase their waste diversion rates. Background: Existing law requires that each agency and each large state facility to divert at least 50% of all solid waste through source reduction, recycling, and composting. These requirements are the state government's complement to the California Integrated Waste Management Act that establishes a state policy goal that 75% of solid waste generated be diverted from landfill disposal by 2020. SB 742 (Hertzberg) Page 1 of ? Each state agency is required to annually report to CalRecycle a summary of their progress in implementing solid waste diversion programs. CalRecycle is allowed to consider an agency's or facility's per capital disposal rate and growth rate to determine compliance (PRC §42921.5). Proposed Law: This bill would raise the waste diversion requirement for the state from 50% to 60% Staff Comments: Based on the reports submitted to CalRecycle, of the 282 reportable state agencies and large state facilities, only 27 facilities are have diversion rates of less than 60% already. And of these 27, 13 have diversion rates exceeding 55% and therefore may only need relatively minor measures to reach the new limit set by this goal. The remaining 14 facilities, however, would require more significant investment to comply with this bill's requirement as many of these 14 have diversion rates in the 30 and 40 percent range. As allowed by statute, CalRecycle determines compliance based on disposal amounts per employee (referred to as the diversion rate equivalent). However, this per employee can be somewhat awkward for agencies that may handle solid waste from other people other than employees, such as visitors in state parks and inmates in prisons as this can significantly skew the estimated diversion rates. In recognition of this skewing and in recognition that some facilities have unique waste diversion challenges (i.e. state hospitals that generate significant amount of bio-hazardous and non-recyclable waste), CalRecycle does not solely rely on the diversion rate equivalent rates for these agencies to determine compliance. Considering how CalRecycle determines compliance with the state diversion rate requirements and given the existing diversion rates of state agencies and facilities, the costs to implement this bill may be relatively controlled. The costs would vary significantly between state agencies but given the number of agencies and facilities affected, statewide total costs could be SB 742 (Hertzberg) Page 2 of ? at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, staff notes that the leniency that CalRecycle grants state agencies in determining compliance, while reasonable, is not explicitly allowed in the statute. Thus agencies and facilities with low diversion rates because of special circumstances would be under pressure to continue to raise its diversion rate equivalent rates to 60% regardless of whether CalRecycle considers them compliant or not. Because of their special circumstances, the cost pressures to achieve 60% are likely at least in the millions of dollars. -- END --