Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2020

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

2.    Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Liabilities for landfill and environmental remediation costs are presented in the table below (in millions):

	June 30, 2020						December 31, 2019
			Environmental						Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation		Total		Landfill		Remediation		Total
Current (in accrued liabilities)	$	108	$	26	$	134	$	138	$	27	$	165
Long-term		1,814		216		2,030		1,717		213		1,930
	$	1,922	$	242	$	2,164	$	1,855	$	240	$	2,095

The changes to landfill and environmental remediation liabilities for the six months ended June 30, 2020 are reflected in the table below (in millions):

			Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation
December 31, 2019	$	1,855	$	240
Obligations incurred and capitalized		40		—
Obligations settled		(47)		(11)
Interest accretion		49		1
Revisions in estimates and interest rate assumptions (a) (b)		27		12
Acquisitions, divestitures and other adjustments		(2)		—
June 30, 2020	$	1,922	$	242

(a) The amount reported for our landfill liabilities includes (i) a $10 million increase in estimated construction costs for capping at certain landfills and (ii) an increase of $8 million due to a business decision to close one of our landfills, which resulted in the acceleration of the expected timing of capping, closure and post-closure activities. This business decision also resulted in an impairment that is discussed in Note 9.

(b) The amount reported for our environmental remediation liabilities includes an increase of $12 million due to a decrease in the risk-free discount rate used to measure our liabilities from 1.75% at December 31, 2019 to 0.75% at June 30, 2020.

At several of our landfills, we provide financial assurance by depositing cash into restricted trust funds or escrow accounts for purposes of settling final capping, closure, post-closure and environmental remediation obligations.

Generally, these trust funds are established to comply with statutory requirements and operating agreements. See Note 13 for additional information related to these trusts.