"California regulators broke state environmental laws by allowing polluters to buy clean fuel credits from large farms that are extracting gas from manure, a policy that harms poor communities and perverts the state’s clean air program, four advocacy groups allege in a lawsuit.
In an opening brief filed this week against the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the groups allege the state is incentivizing farms to get larger and generate more manure through 2024 amendments to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).
The LCFS is designed to provide a range of low-carbon and renewable fuel alternatives to help cut California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other air pollutants. But LCFS amendments are instead, the lawsuit alleges, leading to actions that harm water, air and quality of life in some California farm communities by incentivizing the development of anaerobic digesters to break down manure generated at large-scale dairy farms and other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These digesters turn the animal waste into “biogas”, a mixture of mostly methane and carbon dioxide. Biogas can be refined into a renewable natural gas (RNG) and used in some vehicles, and as a natural gas substitute.
The groups allege by incentivizing more digester use, LCFS is adding to the pollution burden in communities near CAFOs and digesters, which capture methane but can increase other air pollutants such as ammonia and particulate matter (PM2.5). Ammonia can irritate people’s eyes and respiratory systems, while PM2.5 exposure is linked to asthma, heart and lung problems and preterm births."
