Measuring and Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the U.S.
by Kendall Chappell and Lizzy McNevin, April 30th, 2021
A petrochemical refinery in Port Arthur, Tex. by Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
We Know You Know, but Quick History of the EPA, Anyway
The Environmental Protection Agency, often referred to just by its initials, EPA, was established in 1970 in response to Congress and the citizens of this country’s increasing awareness that human activities impact the environment. It’s been more than fifty years since its inception and at this point, the EPA does a lot.
Though technically an independent agency, the top administrator of the EPA is appointed by whoever holds the Office of the President, and while the environment wasn’t always a political lightning rod, it certainly has become one in the last few decades. As such, its priorities and rules have varied as dramatically the political beliefs of our last several presidential administrations. This is excellently exemplified in the EPA’s annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting Program, which tracks the emissions of the largest polluters in the country.
Measuring GHG Emissions
The EPA publishes GHG emissions with two main reports. The GHG Reporting Program (GHGRP), which began in 2010, requires individual facilities that directly emit 25,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent annually or produce products that generate that amount when burned or combusted to disclose how much they generate every year per pollutant (i.e. how much carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds [VOCs], etc.).
Since the GHGRP only reports on the largest emitting sources, which accounts for around 40% of our carbon footprint, there is also the Inventory of the U.S. GHG Emissions and Sinks.** The EPA makes both sets of data openly available so communities, cities and states can identify and compare emissions in their area, down to the specific facility if applicable, and perhaps use it to develop meaningful climate policies. However, the data is collected and measured using very different methodologies.
The GHGRP relies on each facility to self-report and provides guidelines on the methodologies they must follow when reporting. These vary based on the type of emitters (e.g. direct emitting, suppliers, etc.) and temporarily allow for the “best available monitoring methods” in lieu of the recommended monitoring equipment if acquiring and installing the equipment impacts normal business operations at the facility. The Inventory uses an eight-step methodology that calculates “the total fossil fuel consumption for each year is based on aggregated end-use sector consumption published by the [U.S. Energy Information Agency],” that it claims is “conceptually similar” to the approach recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Now, this is just a very broad strokes overview of how the EPA approaches quantifying emissions as the complexity required to calculate the release of each greenhouse gas is immense. That is, of course, assuming that the amount isn’t labeled as “confidential” due to the apparent confidential business information (CBI) it contains. This confidentiality is decided upon by either the EPA or the facility itself.
If that sounds sketchy, it’s because it is.
In fact, it’s actually illegal. In 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century passed both houses of Congress with bipartisan support. This chemical safety legislation amended the much-maligned Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that set the standards for allowing CBI to be decided by the facility without oversight. But unfortunately, other powers came into play after the 2016 election.
The Politics of Measurement
A CBI designation protected many businesses from scrutiny and regulations that exist to protect the environment, both locally and globally. And who loves to protect businesses from any and all oversight and regulation? Why, former President Donald J. Trump and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of course!
Trump’s EPA, known for its anti-climate bent, immediately set about dismantling the reformed TSCA. In particular, he directed the agency to remove certain questions to companies concerning their confidentiality claims. This diminished public oversight—a key component of the law—and limited the EPA’s ability to verify the accuracy of self-reported data. The Environmental Defense Fund sued the EPA and their petition was granted by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds the removal of the questions was “arbitrary and capricious.” Prior to the ruling, the U.S. Chamber filed a motion to intervene in defense of Trump’s EPA.
Before pushing for a weakly monitored CBI, they were critical of the creation of the GHGRP as a whole, filing comments with the EPA that their proposed rule would not rely on sound data. After it’s passage but before Trump became president, the Chamber submitted a Request for Correction of a technical document used to calculate emissions of methane, VOCs and more in 2016, by citing research by IHS CERA — an energy policy group with known ties to the natural gas industry. The Chamber’s actions drew the attention of numerous environmental groups, who countered their claims with a submission to the EPA supporting the initial figures, saying they are “widely supported.”
How Emissions Reporting Impacts Emissions Standards
By challenging the veracity of the EPA’s guidance and calculation of GHG emissions and eventually weakening its ability to verify facilities, it opens the door for climate-denying policymakers and advisors to cast doubt on the standards put in place to protect our air, water and atmosphere and limits the ability for climate-conscious legislators to have accurate data upon which to set policy.
Even before the GHGRP was adopted in 2010, the Chamber exerted its considerable influence as the largest pro-fossil fuel lobbying group in the world to minimize and challenge the EPA’s efforts to calculate GHG emissions. The New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) are rules set by the EPA didcating allowed emissions per facility type for everything from rubber tire manufacturing to oil and gas production, transmission and distribution. Since 2009, the Chamber and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have been petitioning the EPA for changes in the NSPS for the Petroleum and Natural Gas Industry.
The API, a close partner of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed a legal suit against the new source performance standards for the oil and gas sector in 2013. Continuing in 2016, the API submitted a petition to the Obama’s EPA “requesting reconsideration, and in some circumstances an administrative stay” of parts of their “Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Emissions Standards for New, Reconstructed and Modified Sources.” In 2017, the EPA—now led by a Trump appointee—responded to the petition by granting a 90-day stay of the requirements, freeing sources from compliance over this period. The suit regarding oil and gas standards remained open with little action until 2017, where the EPA filed a motion to hold the case in abeyance, effectively ending the case due to imminent changes to the standards.
The Social Cost of GHG Emissions
Not only challenging the methodology behind computing GHG emissions—a key source of intel of setting emission standards ***—Trump’s EPA, the Chamber and their allies, also dispute the formulas used to calculate the social costs of major greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Of particular note is the Chamber’s fight against the social cost of methane. They submitted a comment in 2015 elaborating on perceived flaws in the EPA’s calculation of the social cost of methane. They concluded that the social cost of methane and carbon should not be included in estimates for emission standards on the oil and natural gas sector. Methane is twenty-five times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Still, many of the harms associated with methane are not inherently economic; rather, since methane both contributes substantially to climate change and creates a large amount of pollution, it causes significant harm to local communities, which are often minority. By not considering the social cost of methane, it becomes harder for policymakers to weigh the costs and benefits of methane reduction.
Unfortunately, they found a sympathetic ear in Trump’s EPA that succeeded in lowering the social cost of methane from $1,400 per metric ton to a paltry $50.
The social cost of methane shrunk significantly when Trump took office because they only considered the domestic cost, which “severely underestimates” the gas’s environmental harm. The Trump administration also increased the discount rate for future harm, which is an economic tool used to evaluate how much people are willing to pay now to account for the future cost of something in the decades to come. Increasing it indicates that future environmental degradation is less important to Trump’s EPA than it was to the Obama administration.
Trump vs. the Environment
The all-out assault on emissions standards continued throughout Trump’s administration. In 2017, he released an executive order requiring agencies to reconsider any regulations that “burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources,” and change or remove these regulations as needed. This resulted in the EPA changing or stripping away many of the rules created to reduce and limit the amount of greenhouse gases released in the environment. A particularly egregious example is a rule change that allowed the oil and gas sector to survey less frequently for gas leaks and allow them more time to repair leaks once found, which allowed for increased gas losses and associated methane emissions. Trump’s EPA openly admitted that their efforts made it “simpler and less burdensome” for the sector to comply with standards and will save the industry “millions of dollars in compliance costs each year.
Before Joe Biden was elected president, the EPA granted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and API’s repeated requests to remove methane standards from the NSPS for oil and gas facilities.
The Future of the EPA’s GHG Reporting and Standards
Biden’s selection for EPA director, Michael Regan, has strong qualifications and leads a renewed commitment to science that will play an integral role in the United States’ efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. After four years of stripping away regulations with the goal of helping fossil fuel companies that have no problem harming Americans and our environment, the EPA has a lot of ground to make up.
From reversing Trump-era harmful deregulation to contemplating aggressive “hail marys” legislation, it’s clear Biden’s EPA will be a cornerstone of establishing America’s commitment to stave off the impending crisis of climate change on the international stage. They would be wise to remember the saying “what gets measured gets managed” and ensure the reporting apparatuses of the EPA are fully functioning, funded and verifiable.
** Data tabulated from the 2019 GHGRP indicates that 2.6B metric tons of CO2-e were emitted in 2019 from high emitting industries, while the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks:1990-2019 Main Text writes that gross GHG emissions were 6.6B metrics tons in that same year. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2021-02/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2021-main-text.pdf
*** At Change the Chamber ★ Lobby for Climate, we believe emission standards should be set based on goals to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, not based on percent reductions of existing emissions.