Beginning in 2010, thousands of businesses around the country will have to track their greenhouse gas emissions and report them to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to new agency rules. The information collected by EPA will be publicly available and used to inform policies to reduce these emissions and protect against the worst impacts of climate change.
On 22 September 2009, the EPA released its final rule, required by Congress, creating a greenhouse gas (GHG) registry that will compile the emissions data from the largest emitters across the economy. EPA expects the new registry will track 85 percent of GHG emissions and cover 10,000 facilities. With a threshold of 25,000 tons, only the largest emitters will be required to monitor and report. Covered facilities must begin tracking their emissions on 1 January 2010, and report them every year, beginning in 2011. The final rule also notes that under Clean Air Act authority, companies that fail to monitor or report their emissions could be subject to enforcement action, including fines up to $37,500 U.S. per day per violation.
Soon after the European Union initiated its emissions trading plan in 2005, the price of carbon crashed. The E.U. did not have accurate emissions data, which reduced the effectiveness of its cap-and-trade program. Congress is considering a similar program, and policymakers hope that accurate and consistent monitoring will help prevent a similar price crash.
The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), another program that requires reporting of pollution by individual facilities, has seen much success in prompting voluntary reductions of toxic pollution since the program's inception in the late 1980s. Facility operators frequently first learned of their toxic releases through disclosure under TRI. The database allows governments and technology vendors to identify potential sources for reductions.
The GHG registry could become one of the most anticipated and broadly used environmental data sets ever collected by the government. The potential climate policies impacted by the data include research and development initiatives, economic incentives, new or expanded voluntary programs, adaptation strategies, emission standards, a carbon tax, and a cap-and-trade program. The degree of usefulness of the reporting system will be determined by decisions made during the months ahead.
For further details, see the full article: http://www.ombwatch.org/node/10431/
[Source: OMB Watch]
