Coming Soon...National GHG Reporting

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Frederick R. Anderson

Among the environmental initiatives left languishing by the Bush Administration was a rule to mandate greenhouse gas reporting for significant emitters across the country by 2010. But that’s changing and large carbon emitters who have chosen to ignore the impact of climate change on their businesses will be forced to change their tune almost immediately.

Greenhouse gas reporting is a crucial step in setting a price on carbon emissions, since it would be very hard to implement a cap-and-trade system or even a carbon tax effectively without some transparency about how much carbon is being emitted from where. For the first time, large emitters across the economy will have to conduct greenhouse gas inventories and report them to the federal government.

The Bush administration missed a preliminary September deadline submitting rules, putting it in danger of missing a final deadline of this coming June. With the Obama administration, this rulemaking appears to be a priority and there’s reason to believe the agency can complete its work this spring in time to start collecting data in 2010.

According to a source quoted by InsideEPA.com (subscription required) the proposed rule would mandate reporting for any facility releasing 25,000 tons of CO2e on an annual basis.

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Climate Change Insights - May 15, 2009 2:23 PM
We wrote earlier this week about the prospect of a national GHG registry that could provide an up-close view of the nation’s carbon emitters. While we’re waiting, a team at Purdue has delivered a fascinating tool that provides a taste...
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