RCRC supports Senate Bill 1046, authored by Senator John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), which seeks to facilitate the development of small and medium-sized compost facilities to help the state achieve its SB 1383 organic waste recycling goals.
Specifically, SB 1046 requires CalRecycle to develop a programmatic environmental impact report (EIR) for small and medium-sized compost facilities to streamline the siting and permitting processes for those facilities.
SB 1383 implementation is estimated to cost over $20 billion and require the construction of 50-100 new organic waste recycling facilities, which can be difficult to site and permit.
The California Environmental Quality Act allows specific projects to “tier” off a more comprehensive programmatic environmental impact report (EIR). Once a programmatic EIR has been finalized (and any legal challenges resolved), subsequent projects can rely on that document and applicable mitigation measures. As such, subsequent projects do not need to “recreate the wheel” and can instead focus their CEQA analyses on project-specific impacts that were not contemplated and discussed in the programmatic EIR. This approach can reduce costs, the time required for CEQA review, and litigation delays.
CalRecycle developed a programmatic EIR for anaerobic digestion facilities and CalFire adopted a programmatic EIR to facilitate wildfire fuel reduction work.
RCRC believes SB 1046 will help increase organic waste recycling, reduce pollution, help local governments comply with SB 1383, and create in-state manufacturing jobs.
RCRC’s letter of support is available here. For more information, contact RCRC Senior Policy Advocate, John Kennedy.