Short-lived climate pollutants: recovered organic waste product: agricultural crop preparation service.

Assembly Member Bains frames a tightly targeted carve-out within California’s organic-waste regulatory framework, allowing agricultural crop preparation services to sidestep certain disposal requirements if they can certify they have not placed organic waste in a landfill since 2016. The core objective is to maintain the state’s methane-reduction and edible-food recovery commitments for the broader regulatory program while creating a specific pathway for this defined class to operate under an alternative compliance track.

The exemption applies to the regulations that govern the disposal of organic waste and the associated methane-reduction and edible-food recovery provisions. Eligibility hinges on a demonstration to the administering department, using a form and process developed by the department, that the entity has not disposed of organic waste in a landfill on or after January 1, 2016. The waste types referenced include materials such as culls, fruit skins, hulls, leaves, seed pits, shells, and sticks. The exemption relies on the department’s determination of the demonstration method and does not specify content beyond the landfill-disposal criterion.

Enforcement remains for those not meeting the exemption, while exempt entities would be relieved from those portions of the program that require contracts with food recovery organizations and related recordkeeping, assuming the department accepts the demonstration. The bill assigns responsibility to the department to develop the demonstration process and notes no explicit ongoing verification or renewal requirement. It also indicates a fiscal committee analysis will be conducted, but there is no new appropriation or funding mechanism specified. The definition of “agricultural crop preparation service” is anchored to an existing regulatory definition.

Within California’s climate and waste-management policy context, the bill sits alongside goals to reduce methane emissions and curb organic-waste disposal. By carving out a defined class of entities, AB 1046 could alter the scope of who must comply with the program’s disposal and recovery requirements, depending on how many entities pursue the exemption and how the department administers the demonstration. The bill does not specify an explicit effective date, so the operative timing would follow general state-law rules for enactment, with implementation contingent on department-developed forms and guidance.