Senate EPW Holds Hearing on

Landfill Methane Emissions

The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works held a hearing Wednesday to discuss how methane emissions from landfills can be prevented, detected, and captured.

Committee Chair Senator Thomas Carper (D-DE) opened the hearing by emphasizing the need for the reduction of methane emissions, which are responsible for roughly a third of the global warming our planet is currently experiencing. Landfill emissions account for a third of these emissions, but they can be mitigated with technologies that allow for the identification and remediation of leakages, and the utilization of captured methane as energy. “If we take action to reduce landfill emissions, it would have an immediate positive impact on climate, air quality, and public health, while also creating economic opportunities across our country,” Senator Carper stated.

In her opening statement, Ranking Member Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) urged the development of innovative technologies rather than “punitive regulations” to achieve such reductions. She highlighted that landfills have cut methane emissions by 38% since 1990. “[I]t is essential that regulations must be achievable and incentives are targeted,” she said. Capito also expressed concern that “the landfill sector is facing the same approach that the Biden and Obama administrations have taken with regard to fossil fuels, where the goal is to make them uneconomic, and the EPA then works backward to achieve that with crushing regulations.”

The first witness, Tom Frankiewicz, a waste methane expert at the Rocky Mountain Institute, advocated for a combination of strengthened landfill emission controls and funding for organic waste prevention programs to address emissions. He highlighted that “new EPA landfill standards can reduce landfill emissions by about 1 million methane tons per year, or 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.” (According to the EPA, U.S. landfills released an estimated 122.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of methane into the atmosphere in 2021.) Additionally, he stated, “keeping organic waste out of landfills brings further benefits: addressing food insecurity, creating jobs, and increasing compost to provide soil health.”

Dr. Tia Scarpelli, a research scientist at the emissions monitoring nonprofit Carbon Mapper, added that advanced monitoring technologies are critical for reducing emissions. Remote sensing technologies are making visible the specific processes and parts of the facility experiencing leakages, allowing for precise interventions.

From the perspective of the private-sector waste industry, Anne Germain, Chief Operating Officer of the National Waste & Recycling Association, raised the point that “recently a narrative has emerged that air emissions from landfills have increased. Based on data from the EPA, however, municipal solid waste landfill air emissions have declined by nearly 45% from 1990 to 2021, all while, landfilled waste volumes have increased by about 5%.” Ms. Germain stressed that tightened EPA regulations would disrupt the stability of long-term investments into gas collection. She remarked that the landfill industry would benefit from the robust funding already afforded to oil, gas, and agriculture sectors for methane emissions reduction research. Finally, Ms. Germain requested support for the reversal of a recent Department of Treasury proposal that would eliminate a tax credit for qualified biogas property, which she said has been integral to investments into methane processing infrastructure that reduces landfill emissions.

View a recording of the hearing here.

Reported by NEMWI Intern Eva Kappas, Brown University

House Energy and Commerce Committee Holds Hearing on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund

The Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on January 30 regarding the $27 billion appropriated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was passed in August of 2022. The funding will be used to launch a new program, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF).

The funds will be allocated into three competitive programs, with $14 billion going to the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), $6 billion to the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA), and the remaining $7 billion to the Solar for All program (SFA). Each of these grant programs will award funding to top nonprofit applicants in order to disburse and invest the funds into clean energy production.

The hearing began with an opening statement from Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) who, among other Republican colleagues, voiced concerns about the program. “Particularly with the first two programs (NCIF and CCIA), the EPA is picking a handful of nonprofit grantees, and giving them wide latitude to distribute taxpayer dollars, and abdicating a lot of responsibility for how that money is spent,” he said. “In other words, a few nonprofits are going to make decisions on who receives billions of dollars in taxpayer funds, there is something that doesn’t sit right with nonprofits giving out billions of taxpayer dollars.”

The featured witness was Mr. Zealan Hoover, the Senior Advisor to the Administrator of the EPA. Hoover expressed excitement about the funding granted to the EPA and the work they have done on the GGRF. “The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is a first of its kind, national scale, competitive grant program that will bring public and private capital together to address the climate crisis, create good paying jobs here at home, and deliver lower energy costs for Americans, all while reducing harmful pollution, particularly in low income, disadvantaged, and rural communities that have so often been left behind,” he said.

Many subcommittee members voiced concerns with the potential subrecipients of the taxpayer dollars. Asked by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) about tracking the subrecipients' money, Hoover said, “we have extensive requirements around reporting that we apply to this and the many thousands of other grant awards the EPA makes, those are set under federal regulation and we will be holding them accountable to those federal requirements.”

Hoover also got the chance to speak to the expertise that each of the applicants must have to be awarded money under the GGRF. When asked by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) about why there were so few applicants, he explained that the application process was rigorous, time consuming, and had 70 criteria for each applicant to be graded on. The EPA has also engaged over 250 experts from across many federal agencies to review the applications.

For more information on Greenhouse Gas Reduction, see NEMWI’s report on deploying GGRF capital here.

Reported by NEMWI Intern Aiden Meyer, Nazareth University

House Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Holds Hearing on Water Infrastructure Cybersecurity

The House Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials met on January 31 to discuss building cybersecurity resilience to cyberattacks on community drinking water systems, as a follow-up to a Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing on May 16 of last year.

Subcommittee Chair Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) stated in his opening remarks that the water sector continues to face increasingly sophisticated technical and institutional threats, as seen with “recent cybersecurity attacks... by Iranian hackers.” The hearing focused on how collaboration between industry experts and non-regulatory resources, such as the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center (WaterISAC) and Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI), presents an opportunity for water facilities to enhance cybersecurity resilience while equipping operators with the “technical knowledge and resources that help them protect themselves,” Chair Carter said.

Ranking Member Rep. Paul D. Tonko (D-NY) noted that smaller water facilities face additional structural challenges to “retaining engineers and certified system operators,” making partnerships with the EPA, state regulators, and other actors critical. To protect America’s water systems, he advocated for cost-effective best practices such as training and technical support to help reduce the risk of cyberthreats.

The first witness was Cathy Tucker-Vogel, Public Water Supply Section Chief at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. She stated that last week, Kansas began statewide training in collaboration with the Kansas Information Security Office (KISO) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Vogel also stressed that national cybersecurity measures “must harmonize with existing state approaches, to avoid duplication of effort or confusion, and allow sufficient flexibility to enable primacy agencies to engage effectively with PWSs [public water systems].”

Scott Dewhirst, P.E., Superintendent and Chief Operating Officer of Tacoma Water, advocated for continued partnership with WaterISAC and the reauthorization of the Drinking Water Infrastructure Risk and Resilience Program, a grant program established by Congress under the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018. Through the EPA, he said, this program can support implementation of technical systems and training programs.

Rick Jeffares, President of the Georgia Rural Water Association, promoted apprenticeship and technical assistance programs, such as the EPA’s Cybersecurity Technical Assistance Program, to help address the water sector’s aging workforce.

Finally, Kevin Morley, Ph.D., Manager-Federal Relations at the American Water Works Association, proposed that Congress authorize the creation of a non-federal entity to direct cybersecurity developments in the water sector. He argued that a similar successful approach was taken by the electric sector and should be emulated with water utilities to facilitate information sharing and threat response.

NEMWI will continue to monitor the progress of water infrastructure legislation. A recording of this hearing can be found here.

Reported by NEMWI Intern Christine Baek, Brown University

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