The Environmental Protection Agency says its proposal to stop greenhouse gas reporting for big polluters could s
ave oil and gas companies up to $256 million a year. Some of them are countering that it could hurt their business instead.
Companies, industry trade groups and other energy experts warn that axing the more than a decade-old Gre
enhouse Gas Reporting Program could immediately jeopardize oil and gas firms’ ability to claim highly valu
ed tax credits. It could also hurt companies selling liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Asia andEurope in the fut
ure, they say, where less carbon-intensive energy sources are increasingly more desirable.
Halting emissions reporting introduces “significant uncertainty for producers” and “unnecessa
ry complexity into programs that are critical for deploying the very solutions needed to meet energy and climate goal
s,” said Dustin Meyer, a senior vice president at the American Petr
oleum Institute, in public testimony at an EPA October hearing on the proposal.
API, which has nearly 600 members including Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp., is a major industry grou
p pushing to keep the program, which requires the nation’s biggest
industrial polluters to calculate and report their annual greenhouse ga
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s emissions every yea
r. Exxon declined to comment on the proposal. Chevron, meanwhile, did not respond to requests for comment.
This reporting program “has no material impact on improving human health and the environment,” said an EPA spokesp
erson in an email, and killing it would allow companies more space to put their money on activities with “actual, tangible environmental impacts.”
The data it collects representsthe the nation’s main record of large industrial emissions, which is publicly acces
sible online. It underpins US tax credits claims designed to incentivize capturing and storing carbon dioxide underground, rather than releasing it in
to the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. It’s also used by states to track progress on their clim
ate goals, by investors to inform decisions on energy ventures and by advocates to educate communities on nearby pollution sources.