EPA to stop GHG reporting for oil, gas, and other large emitters

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Sept. 12 proposed discontinuing the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires oil and gas companies and other emitters to track their annual emissions from over 8,000 facilities, including refineries, compressor stations, and power plants.

The EPA said it determined there was no requirement under the Clean Air Act to collect the GHG emissions information from most businesses and that continuing the over 20-year-old program was not "useful to fulfill any of the agency's statutory obligations."

EPA began collecting data from large industrial facilities and suppliers to give it a sense of US emissions to help inform climate policies, improve required national emissions estimates, and aid businesses in identifying opportunities for pollution reduction. 

"The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said. The EPA said the proposal would save $2.4 billion in regulatory costs.

EPA proposes to remove all GHG reporting requirements, except for those subject to the Waste Emissions Program, passed by Congress in 2022. Congress pushed back the reporting requirement under the program—designed to penalize oil and gas companies that emit more than 25,000 tonnes/year of CO₂ equivalent—by a decade to 2034 as part of the recent Trump tax bill.