### L OCAL 

### G OVERNMENT 

### C OALITION FOR



### R ENEWABLE 

### E NERGY

1000 Potomac Street, N.W., Fifth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20007 Phone: (202) 298-1788 Barron County Waste-to-Energy and Recycling Facility (Almena, Wisconsin)

City of Ames, Iowa

City and County of Honolulu,

Hawaii

City of Huntsville Solid Waste Disposal Authority (Huntsville, Alabama)

County Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County (Whittier, California)

ecomaine (Portland, Maine)

Kent County Board of Public Works, Waste-to-Energy Facility (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)

Lee County, Florida

Marion County, Oregon

Mid-Maine Waste Action Corp. (Auburn, Maine)

Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority (Baltimore, Maryland)

Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County (Palm Beach, Florida)

Spokane Regional Solid Waste System (Spokane, Washington)

Wasatch Integrated Waste Management District (Layton, Utah)

York County Solid Waste Authority (York, Pennsylvania) July 1, 2015

Email: ward.hillary@epa.gov

Ms. Hillary Ward Fuels and Incineration Group Sector Policies and Programs Division Office of Air Qualit y Planning and Standards Environmental Protection Agency Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

Re: Emission Guidelines and Compliance Times for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 79 Fed. Reg. 41772

Dear Ms. Ward:

This letter concerns the above-referenced Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) and is submitted by the Local Government Coalition for Renewable Energy (Coalition), an allia nce of local government entities that own (and in various instances al so operate)

state of the art waste-to-ener gy (WTE) facilities. The Coaliti on actively engages in various WTE-related federal regulatory proceedings a nd legislative matters. Most of the Coalition members, in additio n to their WTE facilities, also own and operate landfills, a number of whi ch are currently subject to the emission guidelines in 40 C.F.R. Part 60. As a result, the increased cost that would follow from new federal s tandards for reducing methane and other emissions from landfills are likely to be the responsibility of the Coalition members and the communities the y serve. Be that as it may, methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, and the Coalition members’ communities support enhanced measures to red uce methane emissions from existing landfills given the important environmental protection benef its that will result. We recogni ze that the official period for receipt of comments concerning the ANPRM ha s concluded and sincer ely appreciate your indulgence in consideri ng this brief comment letter, which, as you will see, focuses on the be nefits of WTE as a powerful tool to avoid landfill methane. Given the Co alition members’ involvement in both WTE and landfilling, we provide a unique, well-informed perspective on the broader policy implications of the ANPRM, and we appreciate the opportunity to present our views t o the Agency.

Background-Context. As the Agency explains in the ANPRM, landfills are a very significant – in fact, the third largest – source ofLOCAL GOVERNMENT COALITION FOR

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methane in the U.S. 79 Fed. Reg. at 41774/3, 41775/2. Methane ’s potency as a greenhouse gas is widely recognized, including a Global Warming Potential (GWP ) 34-times greater than carbon dioxide (the 34-times factor is measured over a 100-year cycle; over a 20-year cycle methane’s GWP is 86 times greater than CO 2 ). See http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/- WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_ FinalDraft_All.pdf

, at 8-58, Table 8.7. In addition, and as noted in the ANPRM, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has determined that methane is the second leading long-lived climate forcer after CO 2

. See 79 Fed. Reg. at 41780/2. The U.S. has been referred to as the “Saudi Arabia of trash,” and EPA pr ojects continuing increases in our MSW (municipal solid waste) gene ration as the nation’s populati on grows. See id. at 41778/3- 41779/1. As a result, the signifi cant environmental concern th at landfill methane already poses is likely to intensify in the fu ture absent significant changes in policy.

The ANPRM identifies a number of regulatory measures that can enhance control of methane (and non-methane) emissions at MSW landfills, such as l ower design capacity and NMOC emission thresholds as triggers for additional control req uirements, more accelerated installation and operational requirements for landfill gas coll ection systems, earlier implementation of control requirements for landfills that emplo y leachate recirculation, etc. While the Coalition encourages implementation of such measures, the best way to avoid methane (and other landfill emissions) is to reduce the United States’ overreliance on landfilling. An important analogy that helps to demonstrate this point is provi ded by EPA’s Clean Power Plan

, Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Exis ting Stationary Sources : Electric Utility Generating Units; Proposed Rule , 79 Fed. Reg. 34830 (June 18, 2014). More specifically, the

Clean Power Plan recognizes that although increased thermal efficiency at fossi l power plants can assist in reducing energy sector GHG emissions, it can only achieve a small portion of the necessary reductions, and for that reason the Agency turned to alternative sources of energy (low carbon and zero carbon) to achieve our national goals for GHG r eduction. The facts pertinent to landfill methane are quite similar. Thus, in addition to requi ring further reductions of methane and other landfill emissions, an even more effective tool – whi ch deserves enhanced federal policy support – would be to divert non-recycled waste from lan dfills to WTE. 1

The Role for WTE. The ANPRM refers to the impor tance of “exploring opportunitie s to

achieve additional reductions” in methane and other landfill em issions, including encouragement of new technologies. 79 Fed. Reg. at 41774/3 and 41788/1. Giv en WTE’s very limited use in the U.S. (only 7.6 percent of our waste stream is processed at WTE facilities while more than 65 percent is disposed in landfills), WTE could certainly be viewe d as a new (or reemerging) technology. While proper waste management begins with waste mi nimization and recycling, a vast amount of material remains for other disposition – burial in landfills or use to produce energy at WTE facilities. Landfills add to environmental probl ems, with methane as a prime example, and their contribution to energy supplies (through lan dfill-gas-to-energy facilities) is minimal. WTE, on the other hand, provides excellent environmen tal protection (as EPA has noted, WTE has “less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity”), see http://www.energyrecoverycouncil.or g/userfiles/file/epaletter.p df , emits no methane (in fact, WTE

1 A copy of the Coalition’s December 1, 2014 rulemaking comments concerning the Clean Power Plan are attached. Several of the subjects addressed in this letter are discussed in more detail in the

Coalition’s December 1 comment letter.LOCAL GOVERNMENT COALITION FOR

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serves as a net reducer of car bon emissions to the environment) , and WTE facilities generate (per unit of waste) more than 10 times the electric energy that is p roduced when the same amount of waste is landfilled (with methane collection and energy recover y). See Is it Better to Burn or Bury for Clean Electricity Generation? , pp. 1714-16, February 2009 (available at

h ttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es802395e . Thus, as the Agency’s website explains, for every ton of MSW that is directed to a WTE facility rather than landf illed, one ton of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is avoided. See http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/wte/airem.htm (scroll to “Greenhouse Gases”). The one-ton-avoided figure is a ctually understated, however, because it does not reflect the 36 percent increase in the GWP of methane in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. 2

The importance of comparing the GHG impact of different dispos al options, that is, the “alternate fate of disposal,” has recently been noted by Acting Assistant Administrator McCabe. See Memorandum re Addressing Biogenic Car bon Dioxide Emissions from Stationary Sources

, p. 2, November 19, 2014 (available at http://www.epa.gov/climatecha nge/downloads/Biogenic-CO2- Emissions-Memo-111914.pdf ). That comparison has partic ular resonance in the waste management context given the significant opportunity to reduce waste sector GHG emissions by diverting currently landfilled w aste to WTE. In fact, the Unit ed Nations concludes that waste sector GHG emissions could be reduced by 80 percent through sig nificant diversion of currently

landfilled waste to WTE. See Bridging the Emissions Gap , pp. 37-38, November 2011 (available

at http://www.unep.org/pdf/ UNEP_bridging_gap.pdf ). To put these points in context, the

Administration’s Methane Strategy ( Climate Action Plan – Stra tegy to Reduce Methane

Emissions , available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/strategy_to_redu ce_methane- _emissions_2014-03-28_final.pdf ) has the goal of reducing the nation’s methane emissions (measured as CO 2 equivalents) by 90 million tons. That is almost the same redu ction the U.S. would achieve (87 million tons) if we used WTE at a rate compar able to the European Union (24 percent versus the U.S.’s 7.6 perc ent). The 87 million tons wo uld also be equivalent to removing nearly 18.2 million cars from the nation’s roads. 3

One disadvantage of WTE is its higher cost. Thus, as shown in the attachment (at pp. 9- 10), WTE tipping fees in the U.S. from 1992 to the present have averaged more than 64.6% higher than landfill tipping fees. Although the ANPRM is not, of course, the forum for addressing each of the causes for that disparity, the rulemakin g to which the ANPRM will lead can enhance environmental protection through measures that redu ce the current playing field’s

2 EPA’s analysis also shows that WTE has lower criteria pollutant emissions compared to landfills and landfill-gas-to-energy facilities. See Is it Better to Burn or Bury for Clean Electricity Generation?

, pp. 1711-14, 1716-17.

3 This calculation is based on: (i) 1.36 tons of CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e) emissions avoided for each ton of MSW diverted from landfills to WTE; (ii) U.S Department of Tran sportation data for annual CO 2 e emissions per passenger car (4.78 metric tons) ( see http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm – scroll to Step 6, DOT fuel economy, passenger cars); and (iii ) the approximately 389 million tons of MSW generated in the U.S. in 2011 ( see Generation and Disposition of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States – A National Survey, p. 19, January 2014 (available at http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Dolly_Shin_Thesi s.pdf ). In addition, the calculation excludes the 7.6 percent of MSW already being diverted to WTE.LOCAL GOVERNMENT COALITION FOR

RENEWABLE ENERGY Ms. Hillary Ward July 1, 2015 Page 4

steep tilt in favor of landfilling compared to WTE. Moreover, the adverse environmental impact of landfill methane is to a very significant extent a social co st or “externality,” and as President

Obama’s All-Of-The-Above Energy Strategy emphasizes, policies to encourage renewable energy are particularly important when a competing alternative is not required to “internalize” the cost

of its carbon emissions. See The All-Of-The-Above Energy Strategy As a Path to Sustainable

Economic Growth , pp. 2 and 5, May 2014 (available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/- default/files/docs/aota_energy_s trategy_as_a_path_to_sustainabl e_economic_growth.pdf ). That aptly describes the situation WTE confronts with landfills, and this rulemaking provides an important opportunity to initiate a change in the policies that have allowed the environmental impact of landfill methane emissions to be externalized as a so cietal cost.

* * *

The Coalition appreciates your consideration of these comments . If you have questions, please call me (256-880-6054 – I am the Executive Director of C oalition member Solid Waste Disposal Authority of Huntsville, Alabama, and serve as the Coa lition’s chairperson), or our counsel (Scott DuBoff and M att Schneider, 202-965-7880).

Sincerely,

John R. (“Doc”) Holladay

GSB:7144240.2