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[greenyes] ! ACTION ! - Oppose Energy Bill Incentives for Burning and Burying Garbage
- Subject: [greenyes] ! ACTION ! - Oppose Energy Bill Incentives for Burning and Burying Garbage
- From: "Bill Sheehan" <zerowaste@no.address>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 17:53:02 -0400
Garbage Incineration and Landfilling are Dangerous,
NOT Green Energy Sources
Oppose Incentives for Burning and Burying Garbage
The U.S. Senate will be taking up the energy bill, S. 14,
early next week. Amendments will be offered that classify
garbage incineration and/or landfill gas production as clean,
renewable energy sources. Write or call your Senators and
ask them to oppose such amendments.
The waste industry wants garbage to be treated as a
renewable energy source under the Renewable Portfolio
Standard (RPS), which would give trash companies millions
of dollars in subsidies, encouraging the growth of these
expensive, dangerous and increasingly obsolete
technologies. Subsidizing garbage incinerators and landfills
undermines real progress toward clean, renewable energy
sources like wind and solar power, and wipes out more
significant energy savings from recycling and reuse
businesses that compete with the wasting industry for the
same materials.
The Senate Finance Committee's and House Ways and
Means tax packages include new incinerators and landfill
gas as renewable under the production tax credit, allowing
tax credits for these dirty energy sources. The production
tax credit should be used to encourage truly clean renewable
resources, not burning or burying garbage. Garbage
incineration and landfill gas also should not be included in
Renewable Portfolio Standards.
Not one new incinerator has been built in the United States
in six years due to the effects on public health and massive
costs. Landfill gas collection is extremely inefficient and
should be required, not subsidized. Because almost 90% of
these dangerous gases are being released uncontrolled into
the atmosphere, it is essential that we ban the organic
materials of concerns from land disposal, as Europe is
already doing, instead of subsidizing it. Handing out tax
credits to garbage incinerators and landfills would give an
obsolete industry a jumpstart to build new incinerators and
perpetuate the unfair advantage of dirty landfilling over true
resource conservation industries.
Despite this, the waste industry insists that burning and
burying garbage is a safe way to provide energy in the
United States. In reality, GARBAGE INCINERATION
AND LANDFILLING ARE DANGEROUS AND WILL
COST TAXPAYERS MONEY.
Write or call your Senators today! You can email from
http://action.GRRN.org/legdirectory/
or get telephone numbers there.
For info on incineration, see
http://www.no-burn.org/resources/
For info in landfill gas, see
http://www.grrn.org/landfill/landfill_subsidies.html
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