Oh, Plenty Of Time - EPA Will Give Corps. Another 3 Yrs. To Show How They Total Up GHG Emissions

[hatrack]

U.S. EPA's plan to give businesses another three years to show how they calculate their greenhouse gas emissions will weaken the agency's new reporting requirements and could be illegal, environmental groups said before yesterday's deadline to comment on the proposal.

Under the new reporting program, which was ordered by Congress in 2007, the largest pollution sources now have to gather data on their greenhouse gas emissions and make it available to the public. Most of the highest-emitting industrial plants had to start collecting the information with the 2010 calendar year and will need to submit their first annual reports later this year. The goal is to determine the carbon footprint of each large facility, as part of a federal effort to figure out who is contributing how much to the nation's inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.

But a proposed rule released in December would spare companies from providing much of the underlying data until they send in their greenhouse gas emissions reports for the 2013 calendar year in March 2014. Citing concerns from the Federal Trade Commission and business groups, which said the data could reveal valuable trade secrets, EPA said the deferral would give officials enough time to decide whether the information should be confidential (E&ENews PM, Dec. 20, 2010).

EDIT

Yesterday's letter marks a change of tone by some of the nation's largest environmental groups, which are often called the "big greens." Those groups have generally lined up to support EPA's handling of climate change rules under the Obama administration, but they have recently hit the agency for walking back on some requirements -- most notably, by giving biomass facilities a three-year reprieve from greenhouse gas permitting rules after industry groups complained that it did not recognize a distinction between biomass and fossil fuels. Craig Segall, an attorney at the Sierra Club who co-authored yesterday's comments, said the group might end up suing EPA.

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/03/08/08greenwire-greens-slam-epa-over-exemption-for-greenhouse-92029.html