EPA to Scale Back Emissions Reporting Plan, ProPublica Says

(Bloomberg) -- The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to scale back standards that compel major polluters, including power plants and industrial facilities, to collect and report data on greenhouse gas emissions, ProPublica reported. 

A move to reduce the scope of the EPA’s long-standing Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program would complicate the task of tracking the climate impact of about 8,000 sites, which accounted for direct emissions totaling roughly 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023.

Program staff have been asked to draft a rule that would lower the number of facilities required to report data to about 2,300 assets in the oil and gas sector, ProPublica said, citing a review of documents. 

An EPA spokesperson said the reevaluation of the program wasn’t directly related to a potential regulation.

Most recent data from the EPA through the end of 2023 shows facilities covered under the existing program reduced total emissions for two successive years. The US is the world’s second-largest polluter, accounting for about 11% of total emissions, according to the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research.

President Donald Trump’s administration has launched a sweeping overhaul of US environmental policy, with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin vowing in March to drive “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

Among reforms so far, about $20 billion in grants awarded through a green bank program have been terminated, and dozens of coal-fired power plants are being exempted from stringent air pollution mandates.

(Adds comment from EPA in fourth paragraph.)

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