One Step Closer to National Greenhouse Gas Regulations
This post was written by Jennifer Smokelin.
Congress has directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish national mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Congress inserted the requirement into the omnibus budget bill, HR 2764 (Public Law No. 110-161), which was signed into law last month.
Most observers assumed that a national GHG reporting program would be part of more comprehensive federal emissions trading legislation (e.g., the Lieberman-Warner Act). Instead, the reporting mandate has been enacted before comprehensive climate legislation: Buried in the $500 billion omnibus budget package signed into law by President Bush last month is a provision that requires EPA to establish a mandatory program that will require U.S. companies by mid-2009 to report their GHG emissions. This leaves the EPA in the difficult position of having to develop a reporting program without knowing the details of the regulatory program it will ultimately be supporting, not to mention developing a program to work in harmony with the reporting requirements of other states, including California’s mandatory reporting regulation that became effective Dec. 6, 2007 (but it doesn't require the submission of reports, which would cover 2008 emissions, until 2009)!
