New U.S. Law Requires Greenhouse Gas Reporting by All Sectors

A federal law passed late last year mandates that facilities in “all sectors of the economy” report greenhouse gas emissions.

Buried deep in fiscal year 2008 appropriations of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764) is a provision requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement rules for nationwide “mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions above appropriate thresholds in all sectors of the economy” by mid-2009. 

This provision in the bill reflects what its proponents consider to be a critical first step toward implementing a federal comprehensive greenhouse gas reduction program. The phrase “above appropriate thresholds” suggests the EPA will have to determine which facilities will be required to report greenhouse gas emissions.

The new federal law comes while the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is hard at work developing its own regulations to release by 2012. Those state rules will cap California’s statewide greenhouse gas emissions and reduce them to 1990 levels (about 25 percent from current levels) by the year 2020.

Thus far, CARB has put considerable effort toward establishing its own mandatory reporting guidelines using the California Climate Action Registry as a base model. Once adopted, these regulations will require all significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions in California to report their annual emissions to CARB. 

Because this will be the first time that California has collected greenhouse gas emissions data, businesses have voiced a number of concerns, ranging from issues regarding verification to the penalty structure that will be in place. It remains unclear if and how these concerns will be addressed on the federal level for the new reporting program, as well as how the dueling state and federal programs will coexist. 

Although a final determination has not been made, the “Joint Explanatory Statement” accompanying Congress’ appropriations act did suggest that non-compliant entities under the EPA’s new federal regulations would be subject to severe monetary penalties. The California Chamber of Commerce will be closely monitoring developments on this issue as well as continuing to work actively with the CARB on AB 32 implementation. The CalChamber will be regularly providing members updates on these issues. 

Source: California Chamber of Commerce
February 8, 2008

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