The Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue a rule updating its Clean Air Act emission standards for new and existing municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills to cut methane and other harmful landfill gas emissions.
The rule follows another Clean Air Act-related proposal the EPA issued in January, designed to reduce emissions of nine pollutants, including smog- and soot-forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by approximately 14,000 tons per year at MSW incinerators, as found here.
The EPA expects landfill operators to achieve these standards by incorporating new technologies that will better measure and address emissions and reduce harmful air pollution in nearby communities. For example, landfill owners and operators throughout the United States have invested in systems to capture methane emissions to convert them to marketable energy products.
Earlier this year, accounting and consulting firm Deloitte found considerable room remaining to install more of these systems. According to Deloitte, at the time of the report only 248 of the 1,641 publicly owned MSW landfills in the United States captured biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD), which results in either electricity generation or renewable natural gas (RNG) production.
The Biden administration identifies methane as a “super pollutant,” finding both MSW landfills and oil and natural-gas operations to be consistent methane emitters (see our previous discussion of the EPA’s oil-and-gas regulations here, as well as here and here.
The White House also expressed an intention to provide funding to nations with developing economies to help them tackle waste-related methane emissions. It says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has already formed partnerships with nine private companies to address food loss and waste, which contributes 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, when discarded food decomposes.
The administration plans for USAID to work with nine businesses in Kenya, Nepal and Tanzania over the next two years to upcycle or otherwise prevent over 85,000 metric tons of food loss through practices like innovative food processing and storage and improved postharvest handling.
While the uncertainty of an election year makes it difficult to predict the future, it seems clear the EPA will work to continue expanding its regulation of methane emission over the coming years. If your business involves methane emission, consult an attorney to determine what proactive measures you might be able to take to stay ahead of the EPA’s rulemaking in this area.
