EPA Delays Efforts to Reduce Methane Pollution from Landfills

(Washington D.C. – May 23, 2017) The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying common sense standards to reduce methane and other toxic pollution from landfills – weeks after agency Administrator Scott Pruitt promised industry interests that he would.

Pruitt signed a notice yesterday to stay the safeguards for 90 days. The standards would reduce pollution from new and existing municipal solid waste landfills — the third largest industrial source of methane in the U.S. and a significant source of smog-forming pollutants and air toxics. 

“This action is the latest in a series of deeply concerning efforts Administrator Pruitt has taken to undermine core public health protections — actions taken in the dark, behind closed doors, and at the behest of powerful industry interests,” said EDF Lead Attorney Peter Zalzal. “Communities across the nation will bear the heavy pollution burden of secretive, unjustified delays in implementing common-sense clean air protections for landfill emissions.” 

EPA’s notice to stay the safeguards references a May 5^th letter that Pruitt sent to waste industry trade associations and to major landfill operators Waste Management and Republic which promised to suspend these protections. The letter was just made publicly available today – more than two weeks after it was sent – and the original industry requests from October of 2016 are not yet publicly available. The delays shield from public scrutiny actions that will have harmful effects in communities impacted by landfill pollution.  

EPA’s landfill pollution standards require greater use of widely-available and cost-effective systems to capture landfill gas pollution. EPA estimates that the standards will reduce climate destabilizing methane emissions by more than 330,000 metric tons — the equivalent of reducing 8.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – in 2025.

The standards would also directly cut carbon dioxide by more than 300,000 metric tons and would reduce non-methane organic compounds by approximately 2,000 metric tons by 2025. The organic compounds include air toxics that cause serious harm to human health – including some that cause cancer. 

The standards would deliver up to 10 dollars in public benefits for every dollar spent.

EPA’s landfill pollution standards were last updated more than 20 years ago despite the Clean Air Act’s requirement that they be reviewed every 8 years.