Organic waste: reduction goals: local jurisdictions: waivers.

Existing law requires the State Air Resources Board to approve and begin implementing a comprehensive short-lived climate pollutant strategy to achieve a certain reduction in statewide emissions of methane, including a goal of a 75% reduction in the level of the statewide disposal of organic waste from the 2014 level by 2025. Existing law requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, in consultation with the state board, to adopt regulations that achieve those targets for reducing organic waste in landfills that may include, among other things, different levels of requirements for local jurisdictions and phased timelines based upon their progress in meeting the organic waste reduction goals, and penalties to be imposed by the department for noncompliance. The department's regulations authorize low-population and elevation waivers for a local jurisdiction, based on, among other things, a consideration of the jurisdiction's census tracts, that exempt the jurisdiction from all or some of the department's organic waste collection requirements. This bill would require the department to revise the regulations to require the department to consider, in addition to census tracts, alternatives to those census tracts, as provided, when deciding the geographic boundaries of a low-population or elevation waiver, as specified. The bill would prohibit the department from considering those alternatives when deciding the boundaries for those waivers until it adopts the revised regulations.