DENVER – A bipartisan bill to backfill county governments for an unfunded methane emissions mandate is counting on money from existing state grant programs, which, according to Sen. Byron Pelton, is necessary to ensure Colorado counties don’t go bankrupt from the environmental rules put in place by unelected boards appointed by Gov. Jared Polis.
Senate Bill 26-101, Local Government Landfill Methane Emission Reduction Regulations, will allow counties to use money from the community impact cash fund, air quality enterprise cash fund, and local government mineral impact fund “for the purpose of complying with landfill methane emission reduction requirements adopted by the air quality control commission, a division of the department of public health and environment.”
The mandate, which was set in a rule making process by the commission last summer, requires landfills that collect a certain amount of trash to capture the methane the process puts off.
An unfunded mandate
The rule, however, is projected in some cases to more than double the cost of dumping at public landfills, as the counties that own those facilities say they cannot afford the equipment to capture the methane without drastically increasing costs to the consumer.
The mandate will also impact private landfills like those owned by trash collection companies, raising the cost of trash collection for their customers.
“Morgan County would have to raise their (dumping) fees by 41 percent,” said Pelton, a Republican out of Sterling who represents seven counties in north and eastern Colorado, six of which called him with their concerns. Only Weld County does not have a public landfill out of all of Pelton’s senate district.
Pelton said he is so tired of unfunded mandates that he decided to get on this bill to right the ship for his constituents.
But according to Pelton it hasn’t been easy, as environmental activists have been pushing back hard to force the issue. The original bill said if you could demonstrate you couldn’t afford to comply with the mandate, you didn’t have to do it. That language was lost.
Then there was a provision that said you could apply for a waiver if you could prove you could capture the methane another way without using the commission’s rule. That language lost as well.
So, Pelton offered a “strike below” to the bill, which is a procedural move that essentially deletes the entirety of the bill and replaces it with all new content.
The new bill
As the bill currently stands, the following provisions were added in addition to the grant funding:
· Requires the air quality enterprise to research best practices for reducing methane emissions from landfills;
· Requires the commission to consider debt service availability when developing schedules of compliance for landfills;
· Requires the commission to establish a process for an owner or operator of a landfill to request a waiver from methane emission reduction requirements;
· States that a landfill that reaches or exceeds applicable methane emission limits on or after the effective date of the bill is not subject to methane emission reduction requirements until two years after the landfill reaches or exceeds applicable methane emission limits; and
· Exempts a local government from paying a noncompliance penalty for failure to comply with requirements to reduce methane emissions from landfills if the local government demonstrates that the failure to comply is due solely to a financial inability to comply.
Pelton said the ridiculousness of the environmentalists has left him baffled at times.
“I would like to add language that says: ‘we all care about air quality, but unfunded mandates like this one, all it does is raise fees on the local communities, which then affects the affordability of those communities,’” Pelton said. “Constituents can barely afford the (dumping) fees at the rates they are now, and now they are talking about additional air quality regulations on these landfills.”
Pelton is on the bill in the Senate with Democrat Dylan Roberts, a Western Slope Democrat. Republican Chris Richardson is the lone sponsor in the House. He said he only sponsored it because it did not impact the state budget.
“The only way you will see me as a sponsor on a bill with a fiscal note is if it cuts something out of the budget,” Pelton said.
They were able to use the community impact cash fund because all the affected counties are disproportionately impacted counties. More than 70 percent of the school district in Morgan County is Hispanic, for example.
The bill is scheduled for a third and final reading in the Senate on April 20 before it heads to the House.
