[greenyes] ! ACTION ! - Oppose Energy Bill Incentives for Burning and Burying Garbage

["Bill Sheehan" <zerowaste@no.address>]

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