Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Disclosure: Key Elements of a Prospective U.S. Program
Minimized Reporting Burden
A federal GHG reporting program should be designed to minimize the cost, inconvenience, and general burden associated with reporting. As mentioned earlier, reporting by any entity with at least one facility over the threshold, rather than by any entity over the threshold, would keep entities made up of small facilities out of the system (unless they chose to participate voluntarily). In addition, the implementing agency should work with stakeholders to establish protocols and emission factors, and the program should be integrated with GHG reporting requirements at other levels of government, as well as with other existing environmental reporting requirements. Electronic reporting should be allowed and encouraged, in a format that allows entities to report directly from their internal electronic databases to the reporting system. The administering agency should specify emissions factors for industries (and common unit-process technologies) that could be used by reporting entities. Technical assistance in reporting should be available to any reporting entity.
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