Colorado Senate Advances Bill to Ease Landfill Regulation Burden

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado

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.

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