Charleston Leader

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) recently participated in a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing focused on "Avoiding, Detecting, and Capturing Methane Emissions from Landfills." The discussion shed light on the challenges and opportunities faced by both municipal and private landfills in reducing methane emissions.

During the hearing, Ranking Member Capito raised concerns about the different challenges faced by small municipal and privately owned landfills. Anne Germain from the National Waste & Recycling Association provided some insights, stating, "It's about 50-50. So, Tom said that there's about 1,200 landfills in the country. About half of them are publicly owned and about half of them are privately owned. If you look at the volume of material going into the landfills, however, it switches. About two-thirds of the waste goes to privately owned landfills, and about a third goes to public landfills. So that shows you basically that the publicly owned landfills are significantly smaller than privately owned."

Ranking Member Capito also inquired about the impact of methane regulations on small municipal landfills. Germain explained that the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) have size limitations, exempting landfills below a certain threshold from compliance. She stated, "So, many of the smaller landfills may not be subject to those rules at all. And so, changing the rules to focus on extending it to smaller landfills would, of course, subject them to control and capture requirements that they might not currently be doing."

The discussion then turned to the incentives and challenges associated with capturing methane for energy and industrial use. Ranking Member Capito asked about the economic incentives and regulatory obstacles in place. Germain responded, "It's very much dependent on the type of facility. So if you have right now, the Section 48 tax credits that I referred to in the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) do provide some incentives for capturing outside of the regulation, and then basically utilizing, depending on the landfill’s location, they might be able to utilize the gas in some way, but many of them do not have any access to be able to create some energy from the gas, so they would have to make it pipeline quality. And currently the way the section 48 tax credit regulations are written by Treasury, they would disqualify gas upgrading equipment necessary to make it pipeline quality."

The hearing provided valuable insights into the challenges faced by both municipal and private landfills in reducing methane emissions. As the discussion continues, it is important to consider the different sizes and limitations of landfills and find appropriate solutions for each. Incentivizing the capture and utilization of methane for energy purposes can play a crucial role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting sustainable waste management practices.

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