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Senate hearing reviews 3-year pause on new landfill permits in HB 171
Summary
Lawmakers and stakeholders testified in favor of a three-year moratorium on permitting new municipal solid-waste landfills, citing current capacity, out-of-state waste and the need to finish related rulemaking; industry and some engineers urged alternative approaches rather than a moratorium.
Representative Nick Germana, prime sponsor of HB 171, opened a Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing urging a three-year pause on permitting new municipal solid-waste landfills, saying the moratorium would allow regulators time to finish rulemaking and policy work.
"Now is the perfect time for us to enact a pause on landfill permitting in the state for 2 reasons that I'm going to talk about briefly this morning," Germana said, arguing New Hampshire has sufficient disposal capacity in the near term and that the governor supports the moratorium.
The bill would allow the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) to accept applications and evaluate them for completeness during the pause but would prohibit issuing permits for new landfills for three years. Representative Judy Aaron, chair of the House Environment and Agriculture Committee, testified she supports the moratorium and told senators the pause would give DES time "to develop new regulations, data, technologies, and policies that will protect New Hampshire and its local communities." Aaron said currently permitted capacity and likely expansions mean the state does not face an immediate need for a new landfill.
Proponents described several reasons for the pause. They cited diversion goals and recent legislation intended to reduce volume to landfills — for example, a food-waste bill and extended-producer-responsibility measures for paint — and said technological advances (such as mattress-recycling pilots) could further reduce demand. Speakers pressed the issue of out-of-state waste: Germana and others noted roughly half of landfill inputs come from outside New Hampshire, and Henry Bayou of Waste Management told the committee that, for one large New Hampshire facility, 2024 receipts were about "54% out of state waste, 46% in state waste."
Supporters said the moratorium is intended to be temporary and targeted. Representative Judy Aaron emphasized the bill as amended would not prohibit expansions or modifications at currently permitted facilities and cited RSA 149-M:9 as the statutory framework under which expansions may proceed. Germana and other backers repeatedly said the moratorium would not affect expansions: "That is correct," Germana replied when asked whether the pause would apply to expansions.
Industry and professional witnesses urged caution about a moratorium. Eric Steinhauser, a senior vice president at Sanborn, Head & Associates, said DES recently completed a lengthy rulemaking process and argued the agency can revise rules without a moratorium; he said the new rules were already more restrictive in some ways and that a pause could increase uncertainty for applicants. He and other engineers warned that changing rules mid-application increases workload for applicants and DES and can discourage necessary permitting activity.
Committee members asked for clarity about several empirical points: the DES biannual solid-waste report was cited repeatedly as the source for capacity projections; Germana and Aaron said existing capacity plus likely expansions would meet New Hampshire needs for several years. Questions about the share of out-of-state waste received specific answers from industry: Bayou said the Turkey landfill's 2024 intake was roughly 54% out of state.
No vote was taken during the hearing. The committee closed the HB 171 hearing and immediately opened the hearing on HB 707, the separate siting bill.
Supporters say the three-year pause will let DES and the legislature finish rulemaking and complementary bills (including site-evaluation provisions placed in budget language) so any future siting is done under updated standards. Opponents and some technical witnesses warned a moratorium could produce procedural burdens and urged continued emphasis on waste diversion and other policy tools rather than a permitting pause.
The hearing record shows sustained bipartisan interest in reducing landfill inputs and in improving the siting and rules governing future landfills; however, witnesses differ on whether a moratorium is the most effective tool for those ends.
Looking ahead, proponents urged the Senate to advance HB 171 to give regulators time to complete rulemaking and complementary measures. The committee did not take a formal vote during the hearing.
