Trump EPA to Stop Tracking Emissions From Biggest Polluters

(Bloomberg) -- The EPA plans to end standards that compel power plants, industrial facilities, oil refineries and other major polluters to collect and report data on their emissions.

Ending the agency’s long-standing Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which tracks pollution from some 8,000 sites, would make it harder for the public and policymakers to track greenhouse-gas emissions from large swaths of the economy. In all, polluters on the inventory reported some 2.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023. 

The move to end the program, which was announced Friday and still needs to be finalized, comes as the agency moves to unwind scores of Biden-era environmental regulations. 

“The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement. Ending the program would save businesses up to $2.4 billion in regulatory costs, said the agency.

Environmental groups criticized the EPA’s plan to scrap the program, which was created through legislation signed by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007. 

“Cutting the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program blinds Americans to the facts about climate pollution,” said Joseph Goffman, a former Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at EPA. “Without it, policymakers, businesses and communities cannot make sound decisions about how to cut emissions and protect public health.” 

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