California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) staff invites you to participate in a remote public workshop to discuss potential updates to the Landfill Methane Regulation (//ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation) (LMR). The workshop will include presentations and discussion on current LMR requirements, best practices for operation of landfill gas collection and control systems, technologies for identifying methane leaks, and potential changes to the LMR. Participants will have an opportunity to provide feedback during the workshop and stakeholders can submit written comments following the workshop until January 24, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Workshop materials will be available in advance of the workshop on CARB’s LMR Meetings & Workshops (//ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/landfill-methane-regulation/meetings) webpage.

Background

Municipal solid waste landfills are the second largest source of methane emissions in California. Methane is a short-lived climate pollutant and a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) whose global warming potential is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide on a 100-year horizon. Human sources of methane emissions are estimated to be responsible for up to 25 percent of current warming. Fortunately, methane’s short atmospheric lifetime of approximately 12 years means that emissions reductions will rapidly reduce concentrations in the atmosphere, slowing the pace of temperature rise in this decade. The Landfill Methane Regulation requires owners and operators of certain municipal solid waste landfills to install and optimally operate gas collection and control systems, monitor and repair emission exceedances and other performance issues, ensure that control devices achieve a minimum 99% methane destruction efficiency and report certain information annually to CARB.

The Board approved the LMR in 2010 as an early action measure to address the requirements of  Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warning Solutions Act of 2006 (//ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/ab-32-global-warming-solutions-act-2006). In 2016, Senate Bill 1383 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1383), in part, directed CARB to implement the Short-lived Climate Pollutants Strategy to achieve a 40% reduction in methane by 2030 and established specified targets for reducing organic waste in landfills. Additionally, CARB’s 2022 Scoping Plan for Achieving Carbon Neutrality (//ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/ab-32-climate-change-scoping-plan/2022-scoping-plan-documents) identified that while reducing disposal is the most effective means of achieving methane reductions, reducing emissions from waste already in place in landfills is also critical.