Senator Bob Wieckowski, Chair

June 21, 2017

Senator Bob Wieckowski, Chair Senate Environmental Quality Committee State Capitol, Room 2205 Sacramento, CA 95814 Fax: (916) 322-3519

RE: AB 1036 (McCarty) Compost Permitting—Support

Dear Senator Wieckowski,

The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is a statewide organization that represents both farmers and non-farm residents who support sustainable food and farming policies. CAFF would like to express our support for AB 1036 by Assemblymember McCarty, a measure that will designate compost facilities as Essential Public Services and require greater interagency cooperation in their regulation. AB 1036 will support the development of the organics recycling infrastructure that is needed to meet the state’s organic waste diversion mandates.

Although California leads the nation in waste reduction and recycling, the state continues to dispose in landfills more than 15 million tons of compostable organic waste each year. The Legislature has adopted numerous goals that will encourage recycling of this waste and should ultimately lead to more compost production in the coming years. Further, the application of compost in agriculture and landscaping has been shown to offer significant soil carbon-sequestration and water-quality benefits, provide erosion control, and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. CDFA is starting a Healthy Soils program that presumes that compost will be widely available for application to farms.

However, permitting compost facilities remains challenging in California and compost facilities are regulated by several state agencies with occasionally counterproductive or conflicting requirements. According to CalRecycle, California needs 30 to 100 new organics recycling facilities in order to achieve these goals, and easing requirements for composting on farms and dairies will assist with compost production in rural areas.

AB 1036 addresses one of the most significant obstacles to permitting, the New Source Review requirement in non-attainment air districts, which overlooks the net gain to air quality achieved by removing organics from landfills or by composting manure. This bill also further mandates cooperation among the permitting agencies to ensure that state agency actions are consistent with diverting organics to composting facilities, in order to facilitate the state’s organic waste diversion goals. By managing our waste streams more effectively, California can significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

For these reasons, we urge your support for AB 1036.

Sincerely,

David Runsten Policy Director