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August
30, 2001
The Honorable Max Baucus
Chairman, Finance Committee
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: Landfill Gas Tax Credits -- OPPOSITION
Dear Senator Baucus:
The Grassroots Recycling Network is writing to you to express the
recycling and composting community's OPPOSITION to proposals for
IRS Section 45 tax credits for landfill methane gas energy recovery,
as included recently in H.R. 4. Landfill gas capture should be required,
like landfill liners and leachate collection are required, not subsidized.
The GrassRoots Recycling Network is a North American network of
waste reduction activists and professionals dedicated to achieving
a sustainable economy based on the principle of Zero Waste.
Please realize that burial of organics (the source of methane and
other gases), like food scraps and wood, in landfills is an obsolete
and dangerous practice. Europeans are in the process of phasing
out all disposal of organics in landfills. Very little methane (on
the order of 10%) and other toxic gas generated by decomposing garbage
is captured by collection systems.
Tax subsidies for landfills would:
- Perpetuate
landfills as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and groundwater
pollution;
- Undermine
current organic recovery (composting) businesses and local government
programs, and delay innovation of new, responsible alternatives
to landfilling; and
- Constitute
an inefficient, costly and misguided waste of taxpayer money for
something that is already profitable in some energy markets, and
should be required in any event.
At
a time of tight federal budgets, we should not be wasting money on
a cosmetic fix to an obsolete technology. Methane production from
landfills can be avoided with readily available, economically beneficial
and environmentally valuable alternatives, like composting the organic
fraction of our waste stream. Please call me at 706-613-7121 or visit
our web site at www.grrn.org/landfill for more information.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sheehan, Ph.D.
Executive Director
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