EPA Bucks White House and Plans for Registry on Greenhouse Gases

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started work on a draft rule creating mandatory greenhouse gas reporting requirements, even though President Bush's proposed FY 2009 budget does not provide funding for the rulemaking.

Last year's omnibus spending bill for FY 2008 (H.R. 2764), passed at the tail end of 2007, included a provision to create a greenhouse gas registry. The provision required a draft rule within nine months and a final regulation within 18 months of the bill's enactment. Despite signing the omnibus spending bill that contained the greenhouse gas registry provision for FY 2008, President Bush's recently proposed budget for FY 2009, released on Feb. 4, failed to continue funding for the rulemaking or implementation of the registry. While EPA can move forward with the rulemaking using the money allocated in the FY 2008 omnibus bill, without additional funds in FY 2009, the program would come to a halt. Perhaps that is the point of the president's proposal to zero out spending for the registry.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sponsored the measure, seeing reliable and accurate baseline greenhouse gas emissions data as the first step to any policies aimed at their reduction, particularly for cap-and-trade legislation. The provision specifically directed $3.5 million to EPA for establishing an emissions registry but provided little implementation direction beyond having the registry cover all sectors. Therefore, EPA has wide discretion in establishing the registry and determining reporting threshold levels.

Sarah Dunham, director of EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality's Transportation and Climate Division, reported that EPA would be moving forward on a greenhouse gas registry. Dunham also explained that avoiding overlapping reporting requirements is a priority, using carbon dioxide emissions by cars and light trucks under corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards as an example.

Creating a national greenhouse gas registry has been the focus of other legislation. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) introduced the Greenhouse Gas Accountability Act of 2007 (H.R. 2651), requiring all publicly traded companies to report their emissions to both EPA and in financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) sponsored the National Greenhouse Gas Registry Act of 2007 (S. 1387), which adds greenhouse gases to the list of chemicals tracked by the Toxics Release Inventory. Neither the House nor the Senate were able to move these bills during the 2007 session and instead opted for the omnibus provision.

As Congress reacts to the president's budget request, it is unclear whether it will insert dedicated funding for the greenhouse gas registry program during the FY 09 appropriations process to build on the $3.5 million allocated in the FY 08 omnibus bill. If Bush's proposed elimination of funding for the emissions registry remains, a greenhouse gas registry may require Congress to take action on one of the greenhouse gas bills introduced last year. Until told otherwise, however, EPA appears to be trying to stay on target.