Committee advances LD 2227 to update financial-assurance rules for landfills and incinerators

Senate Chair Denise Templer said the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources held a public hearing on LD 2227, an act to update financial-assurance requirements for certain solid waste facilities, and asked Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials to introduce the department-originated bill.

Suzanne Miller, director of the Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management at Maine DEP, told the committee LD 2227 would align some state requirements with federal regulations while retaining Maine-specific mechanisms that some facilities already use. "We wanted to put some of the original language we have in Maine back in," Miller said, citing escrow accounts, reserve accounts calculated consistent with IRS rules and wording that specifies an "irrevocable trust account" rather than the broader federal phrasing.

Miller said the bill also seeks to give the department statutory authority to require a third-party independent financial review of proposed financial-assurance mechanisms when applications include complex documents the department cannot fully evaluate in‑house. "This second sentence about the financial review is really important to the department because we don't have the resources in house to really review some of these really complicated financial documents," Miller said.

Committee members asked whether the federal financial-assurance regulations had changed; Miller responded they were "pretty long standing" and that the department last saw major updates in the late 1990s. She also provided a scope estimate: "We have about 24 landfills and about 3 incinerators," she said, when asked how many entities would fall under the requirements.

With no public testimony for, against or neither for nor against the bill, the committee moved into a work session. Representative Bill Brigio moved to advance the bill as amended, and the motion was seconded. The committee then voted in work session to pass LD 2227 as amended; the clerk recorded 11 votes in favor and none opposed. The chair declared the motion passed as amended and noted the passage was unanimous of those present and voting.

The amendment preserves certain state mechanisms and inserts department language to allow a third-party review where necessary. The work session also included an agreement that staff and department personnel would work together to ensure the final statutory language reflected the department's intent and that final language would return for language review with an accompanying fiscal note.

Next steps: the committee will complete remaining language reviews and finalize fiscal notes; final enactment would follow the Legislature's remaining procedural steps.

Action: The committee approved LD 2227 as amended in work session (roll-call: 11 yay, 0 nay).