A matter on the San Francisco City Planning Commission’s agenda Thursday deserves a lot more public scrutiny than it seems to be getting — given its potential to undermine both San Francisco’s Zero Waste policy and Gov. Jerry Brown’s bold executive order requiring the most aggressive cuts to carbon emissions in North America.

Zero Waste commits San Francisco to diverting 100 percent of its waste away from landfills by 2020. The governor’s order seeks to cut polluting greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2030.

So why is the planning commission’s staff bending over backward to accommodate trash hauler Recology’s request to avoid a transparent environmental impact review process, called for under the California Environmental Quality Act, and to approve a new plan to truck all of San Francisco’s garbage 77 miles on an already congested Interstate 80, across four counties, to a landfill near Vacaville? Recology and the commission staff are seeking a “negative declaration” under CEQA, a procedural move that would bypass the environmental review process entirely.

Today, city waste is picked up by Recology, and sent to the Altamont landfill in Alameda County, which is owned by another company, Waste Management. It’s a partnership that’s worked for San Francisco. City trash fees have helped Altamont become one of the greenest landfills in the country, contributing to the creation of green electricity and clean-burning fuel. And with plenty of room to continue receiving San Francisco’s trash for years, Altamont is pivotal to the city’s Zero Waste policy’s success.

Why the proposed change? Why allow a carbon-heavy plan to add more than 2,000 miles of truck traffic and pollutants to the city’s carbon footprint — per day? Follow the money.

Recology owns the Solano County landfill and would rather pay itself for trash disposal than another company. The problem: The requested change provides an economic incentive to a private company to keep garbage flowing to its own landfill — in direct conflict with our Zero Waste goals.

The Sierra Club first raised this concern in 2011 when Recology sought to haul San Francisco garbage by rail to its own landfill in Yuba County. “Recology’s interest in maintaining a landfill operation may also influence it when choosing its waste diversion programs,” the club told the San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the time.

Recology’s latest version has other problems that require thorough and independent study: the construction of new methane gas production facilities and pipelines, more heavy diesel truck traffic on community roads, and air quality effects.

It’s inconceivable that such a big step backward could proceed without deeper and more transparent environmental study. An environmental impact review is essential to allow for informed decision-making and an understanding of alternatives that can produce the best environmental outcome for San Francisco.

Tell the Board of Supervisors and the the planning department: Recology’s anti-Zero Waste trucking plan deserves an EIR, not a free pass.

Norman LaForce is the former chair of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club.