The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it would stop making polluting companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to it, eliminating a crucial tool the U.S. uses to track emissions and form climate policy. Climate NGOs say their work could help plug some of the data gap, but they and other experts fear the EPA’s work can’t be fully matched.
“I don’t think this system can be fully replaced,” said Joseph Goffman, the former assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “I think it could be approximated — but it’s going to take time.”
The Clean Air Act requires states to collect data on local pollution levels, which states then turn over to the federal government. For the past 15 years, the EPA has also collected data on carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases from sources around the country that emit over a certain threshold of emissions. This program is known as the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, or GHGRP, and “is really the backbone of the air quality reporting system in the United States,” said... Read more
