AB 1548: Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: grant program: recycling infrastructure projects.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board as a part of the market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

Existing law requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, with additional moneys from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that may be appropriated to the department, to administer a grant program to provide financial assistance to promote the in-state development of infrastructure, food waste prevention, or other projects to reduce organic waste or to process organic and other recyclable materials into new value-added products. Existing law requires the program to provide eligible financial assistance for certain activities, including recyclable material manufacturing. Existing law specifies eligible infrastructure projects for purposes of the program. Existing law requires the department to consider if and how the project may benefit disadvantaged communities in awarding a grant for organics composting or organics in-vessel digestion.

This bill would expand the scope of the grant program to include providing financial assistance to promote in-state development of projects to sort and aggregate organic and other recyclable materials, as provided, or to divert items from disposal through enhanced reuse opportunities. The bill would require the grant program to provide eligible financial assistance for increasing opportunities for reuse of materials diverted from landfill disposal and for recyclable material recovery, sorting, or bailing equipment for use at publicly owned facilities. The bill would authorize eligible infrastructure projects for the grant program to include projects undertaken by a local government at publicly owned facilities to improve the recovery, sorting, or baling of recyclable materials to get those materials into the marketplace, the purchase of equipment and construction of facilities to help develop, implement, or expand edible food waste recovery operations, and the establishment of reuse programs to divert items from landfill disposal for reuse by members of the public. The bill would also require the department to consider if and how the project may benefit low-income communities, as defined, in awarding a grant for organics composting or organics in-vessel digestion.