The EPA wants to end a requirement that large polluters report their greenhouse gas emissions

By MATTHEW DALY WASHINGTON AP The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed doing away with a initiative that has required large mostly industrial polluters to review their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to the regime Related Articles Massachusetts flags at half-staff in honor of Charlie Kirk liberal backlash ensues Trump administration to award a no-bid contract on research into vaccines and autism Accused Charlie Kirk killer confessed to his father California lawmakers pass bill barring officers from wearing face masks Lawsuit says US held West African asylum seekers in straitjackets for hours on flight to Ghana The undertaking requires refineries power plants oil wells and landfills to statement their emissions without danger of penalty as leaders seek to identify high-polluting facilities and develop policies to lower emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases Experts say the reporting held the companies publicly accountable for their emissions Since the initiative began in U S industry has collectively shared a drop in carbon emissions mostly driven by the closure of coal-fired power plants EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Venture burdensome and unhelpful to improving human wellness and the milieu Removing the rule would save American businesses up to billion in regulatory costs over years while maintaining the agency s statutory obligations under the Clean Air Act Zeldin revealed If finalized the proposal would remove reporting obligations for most of large industrial facilities in the United States as well as fuel and industrial gas suppliers and carbon dioxide injection sites The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Project is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality Zeldin explained in a message It costs American businesses and manufacturing billions of dollars driving up the cost of living jeopardizing our nation s prosperity and hurting American communities he commented With this proposal we show once again that fulfilling EPA s statutory obligations and Powering the Great American Comeback is not a binary choice But experts say dropping the requirement as Zeldin promised in March when he unleashed what he called the greatest day of deregulation in U S history risks a big increase in emissions since companies would no longer be publicly accountable for what they discharge into the air And they say losing the evidence at the same time the EPA is cutting air quality monitoring elsewhere would make it tougher to fight context change Joseph Goffman who led EPA s Office of Air and Radiation under President Joe Biden commented eliminating the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Undertaking blinds Americans to the facts about setting poisoning Without it policymakers businesses and communities cannot make sound decisions about how to cut emissions and protect masses soundness FILE The Warrick Power Plant operates April in Newburgh Ind AP Photo Joshua A Bickel File By hiding garbage information from the general Administrator Zeldin is denying Americans the ability to see the damaging results of his actions on weather trash air quality and community physical condition Goffman noted calling the plan yet another example of the Trump administration putting polluters before people s soundness David Doniger a senior strategist at the Natural Materials Defense Council an environmental group called the proposal a cynical effort to keep the American constituents in the dark because if they don t know who the polluters are they can t do anything to hold them responsible Big polluters may want to keep their weather corruption secret he added but the residents states and local policymakers have depended on this material for more than years Residents accountability and pushback from investors have led a large number of companies to reduce their atmosphere waste even before EPA sets stricter standards Doniger disclosed But Zeldin mentioned reducing the overall regulatory burden on U S industry will allow companies to focus compliance expenditures on actual tangible environmental benefits The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Undertaking covers source categories and requires more than facilities and suppliers in the U S to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions annually Zeldin declared Following a careful review EPA proposed that there is no requirement under the Clean Air Act to collect GHG emission information from businesses nor is continuing the ongoing costly material collection useful to fulfill any of the agency s statutory obligations he disclosed The EPA will accept citizens comments on the proposal for more than six weeks after the plan is published in the Federal Register expected in coming days