Greenhouse Gas Reports Could Be Required Of Businesses
WASHINGTON — The federal government wants to require companies for the first time to disclose the amount of greenhouse gases they're releasing into the atmosphere.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed mandatory reporting of the gases blamed for global warming from approximately 13,000 facilities nationwide. The regulation would cover companies that either release large amounts of greenhouse gases directly or produce or import fuels and chemicals that emit heat-trapping gases when burned.
Refineries, automobile manufacturers, power plants, coal mines and large manure ponds at farms all would have to report to the government emissions of at least six different gases.
Together, these facilities account for about 85-90 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA said.
"Our efforts to confront climate change must be guided by the best possible information," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement announcing the proposed regulation.
Companies would have to start collecting data on their 2010 emissions. The EPA estimates the registry would cost a total of $127 million a year.
The EPA currently requires reporting of greenhouse gases only from power plants. It also releases an annual inventory that estimates greenhouse gas emissions from broad categories such as transportation and electricity production.
The regulation proposed Tuesday would collect emissions information from individual facilities that emit 25,000 tons or more of greenhouse gases each year _ or the pollution of more than 4,500 cars.
The information will lay the groundwork for any regulation of greenhouse gases.
The EPA is taking steps toward controlling greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act. The agency is expected to issue a finding in mid-April that greenhouse gases pose risks to human health and welfare, a determination that would compel it to reduce emissions under the law, according to a congressional aide briefed on an internal planning document. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the agency's plans are not supposed to be disclosed.
Congress is also drafting legislation to limit the pollution.
"These emissions reporting rules are a welcome foundation for any serious program to curb global warming pollution," said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
The Bush administration had failed to meet a deadline set by a 2007 law for drafting the emissions reporting rule. It was due in September.
In a letter sent to EPA at the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., criticized the Bush EPA for delaying the measure, as one of several signs that the administration was not serious about addressing global warming.
"Has EPA now become unwilling even to comply with a regulatory deadline ... which simply requires you to begin the process of collecting information necessary for developing sound climate change policy?" Feinstein wrote.
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On the Net:
EPA Proposed Greenhouse Gas Registry: http://tinyurl.com/ghgregistry
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DINA CAPPIELLO | March 10, 2009 05:21 PM EST |
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