U.S. Senate hearing shows EPA should not delay on updating landfill regulations
Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing, “Avoiding, Detecting, and Capturing Methane Emissions from Landfills.” The hearing was an important look into the methods and technologies that can be used to reduce methane and other harmful pollution from new and existing municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, and comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s August 2024 statutory deadline to reassess its standards approaches.
“As the third largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the country, it is critical that EPA revises its new and existing source landfill regulations,” said Darin Schroeder, Methane Legal and Regulatory Director at CATF. “Advances in mitigation technology and best practices for this sector have outpaced existing standards, as evidenced by requirements in leading states like California, Oregon, and Maryland. Reducing methane is the best tool we have to bend the climate curve, and EPA should act without delay to update their standards.”
EPA’s current standards for new and existing MSW landfills were most recently updated in August 2016. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review New Source Performance Standards every eight years and to revise them if deemed appropriate by the agency, meaning the agency must begin a rulemaking process no later than August 2024.
Methane is a harmful super pollutant with a climate warming potential more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Reducing methane pollution is the best way to reduce the amount of global warming we’ll experience in the next 20 to 30 years, a critical timeframe for avoiding passing irreversible climate tipping points. The most recent inventory in the U.S. shows that in 2021 U.S. landfills emitted approximately 3.7 million metric tons of this powerful greenhouse gas.
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Steve Reyes, directeur de la communication, [email protected], +1 562-916-6463
À propos de Clean Air Task Force
Clean Air Task Force (CATF) est une organisation mondiale à but non lucratif qui s'efforce de se prémunir contre les pires impacts du changement climatique en catalysant le développement et le déploiement rapides d'énergies à faible émission de carbone et d'autres technologies de protection du climat. Forte de 25 ans d'expertise internationalement reconnue en matière de politique climatique et d'une volonté farouche d'explorer toutes les solutions potentielles, CATF est un groupe de défense pragmatique et non idéologique qui propose les idées audacieuses nécessaires pour faire face au changement climatique. CATF a des bureaux à Boston, Washington D.C. et Bruxelles, et son personnel travaille virtuellement dans le monde entier. Visitez catf.us et suivez @cleanaircatf.
