Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities (Tables)

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2020

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Liabilities for Landfill and Environmental Remediation Costs

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

	September 30, 2020						December 31, 2019
			Environmental						Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation		Total		Landfill		Remediation		Total
Current (in accrued liabilities)	$	102	$	27	$	129	$	138	$	27	$	165
Long-term		1,826		211		2,037		1,717		213		1,930
	$	1,928	$	238	$	2,166	$	1,855	$	240	$	2,095

Changes to Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

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

			Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation
December 31, 2019	$	1,855	$	240
Obligations incurred and capitalized		61		—
Obligations settled		(75)		(17)
Interest accretion		75		1
Revisions in estimates and interest rate assumptions (a) (b)		30		14
Acquisitions, divestitures and other adjustments (c)		(18)		—
September 30, 2020	$	1,928	$	238

(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 September 30, 2020.

(c) The amount reported for landfill liabilities includes the reclassification of $17 million to accrued liabilities in our Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet related to certain landfills classified as held for sale as of September 30, 2020 in connection with the sale of the landfills to GFL Environmental Inc. The divestiture is directly related to the

Advanced Disposal, Inc. (“Advanced Disposal”) acquisition. These transactions are discussed further in Notes 8 and 14.