Environmental Newsflash, Issue 20

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially opened the 60-day comment period on a proposed rule that would impose reporting requirements on industrial facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of CO₂e (CO₂e or greenhouse gas emissions) per year. The proposed rule, signed by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on March 10, 2009, was published in the Federal Register on April 10, 2009. 

This proposed rule would affect some 13,000 facilities that collectively account for up to 90 percent of greenhouse gases emitted in the United States .  If adopted, the rule would not only apply to facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons of CO₂e annually, but also would apply to suppliers of fossil fuels and industrial greenhouse gases and manufacturers of vehicles and engines.  Subject entities will be required to submit annual reports to the EPA, cataloguing the potential emissions from the downstream use of their products for all greenhouse gases, fluorinated gases and hydrofluorinated ethers. 

Within the next 12 months, companies will need to determine whether their operations are subject to reporting under the proposed rule or qualify for exemption.  As such, proactive self-critical analysis with an eye toward compliance and/or mitigation is on the horizon.  This appears to be a significant step in an ongoing campaign by environmental groups, corporate shareholder activists, and some non-profit organizations to address the issue of climate change.  We anticipate other proposed legislation and regulation may be following from Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the coming months. 

The EPA is holding public hearings on the proposed rule in this month, and is now accepting comments. Comments on the proposed rule should be labeled with docket identification number EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0508 and must be submitted before June 9, 2009. 

For more information on this new EPA rule, please contact:
Andrew Perel: 212.506.3906, aperel@steptoe.com
Daniel Lavoie: 212.506.3919, dlavoie@steptoe.com
James Derouin: 602.257.5237, jderouin@steptoe.com
Fred Bellamy: 602.257.5204, fbellamy@steptoe.com
David Nelson: 602.257.5246, dnelson@steptoe.com
Mark Freeze: 602.257.5215, mfreeze@steptoe.com