BILL ANALYSIS
AB 222
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 222 (Adams and Ma)
As Amended May 5, 2009
Majority vote
UTILITIES AND COMMERCE 11-0
APPROPRIATIONS 14-1
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|Ayes:|Fuentes, Duvall, Tom |Ayes:|De Leon, Nielsen, |
| |Berryhill, Blakeslee, | |Ammiano, |
| |Carter, Fuller, Furutani, | |Charles Calderon, Davis, |
| |Huffman, Smyth, Swanson, | |Duvall, Fuentes, Hall, |
| |Torrico | |Harkey, John A. Perez, |
| | | |Price, Solorio, Audra |
| | | |Strickland, Torlakson |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | |Nays:|Skinner |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Allows facilities that convert solid waste into energy
or chemicals to count as a renewable electricity generation
facility for the purpose of California's Renewable Portfolio
Standard (RPS). It also allows local governments to count solid
waste that is converted into electricity or chemicals toward
their recycling diversion goals. Specifically, this bill :
1)Defines "biorefinery" and requires such facilities to meet or
exceed all local and state air and water quality standards, as
well as other specified environmental protection criteria.
2)Includes use of conversion of municipal solid waste (MSW) at a
biorefinery to electricity or certain other useful products
among the criteria that qualifies a facility for purposes of
the RPS.
3)Prohibits a local government from including solid waste
diverted to a biorefinery towards its compliance with the
state requirement to divert 50% of solid waste from landfill
or transformation.
4)Allows a local jurisdiction to include solid waste diverted to
a biorefinery towards meeting a requirement to divert more
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than 50% of solid waste from landfill or transformation.
5)Repeals the definition of "solid waste conversion" and
specifies that a gasification facility is not a biorefinery.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires retail sellers of electricity, except local publicly
owned electric utilities, to increase their existing level of
renewable resources by 1% of sales per year such that 20% of
their retail sales are procured from eligible renewable
resources by 2017.
2)Defines eligible renewable resources to include all generation
from an in-state renewable electricity generation facility
that uses biomass, solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind,
geothermal, fuel cells using renewable fuels, small
hydroelectric generation of 30 megawatts or less, digester
gas, municipal solid waste conversion, landfill gas, ocean
wave, ocean thermal, or tidal current, and any additions or
enhancements to the facility using that technology.
3)Requires cities, counties, and regional agencies to divert at
least 50% of their solid waste from landfills. Permits a
city, county, or regional agency to count up to 10% of their
50% mandated solid waste diversion from transformation or
biomass conversion under limited circumstances.
FISCAL EFFECT : Negligible costs, if any.
COMMENTS : According to the author, the purpose of this bill is
to encourage the production of low-cost biofuels and green power
from California's from converting municipal solid waste into a
fuel source that can be used to produce renewable electricity.
The author and supporters believe these goals can be achieved by
clarifying that solid waste conversion facilities that convert
municipal solid waste into electricity count toward a utility's
RPS and by creating incentives for local governments to provide
the conversion facilities with the solid waste fuel stocks.
The term "conversion technologies" refers to a wide variety of
different technologies that heat or "cook" solid waste in order
to reduce its volume, using the byproduct to produce energy or
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other new products.
Conversion technologies include pyrolysis and gasification.
These technologies heat solid waste at extremely high
temperatures (over 1300F in gasification) to produce gas and
liquid residues that are typically burned to produce energy.
Biochemical conversion processes use acid or enzymatic processes
to split the chemical bonds of the feedstock (in this case solid
waste). Resulting sugars can be fermented to make ethanol for
fuel, and acids for industrial uses. All of these technologies
produce toxic air pollutants.
RPS requires investor-owned utilities and certain other retail
sellers to achieve a 20% renewable portfolio by 2010. RPS
defines renewable resources to include, among other
technologies, a MSW conversion facility that meets specific
environmental standards. These standards are more rigid than
standards for other industrial processes. No MSW conversion
facility can meet all of these standards; consequently, current
law, in effect, prohibits MSW conversion facilities from
qualifying for purposes of meeting the state renewable energy
goals.
This bill would change the requirements for MSW conversion to
count toward the RPS so that instead of meeting the specific
restriction above, the biorefinery would be allowed to have
discharges of air contaminants, water, and hazardous waste
provided the facility was in full compliance with the standards
set by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), and the
California Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) that
apply to any other manufacturing processes.
This bill also allows a local government to count conversion of
MSW at a biorefinery as part of its diversion of solid waste,
should a local government be required to divert more than 50% of
its solid waste. In doing so, the bill allows a process that
does not count toward a local government's MSW diversion
requirement today to potentially count toward MSW diversion in
the future, albeit to a limit extent.
Opponents, including several environmental and environmental
justice organizations, argue that this bill could result in the
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release of toxic air emissions that result from the "cooking" of
waste. Solid waste conversion relies on feed stock that is as
varied as the contents of the solid waste stream. The quality
of emissions resulting from such solid waste conversion,
opponents claim, is therefore unpredictable and will most
certainly include high levels of pollutants, regardless of the
bill's language to the contrary.
Opponents also argue that this bill provides local government
with a perverse incentive to send their solid waste to
biorefineries rather than increasing their rate of recycling or
composting or reducing the volume of their waste stream. Such
an incentive contradicts well-established state waste management
goals
Analysis Prepared by : Edward Randolph / U. & C. / (916)
319-2083
FN: 0000934