By Maxine Joselow, New York Times, Sept. 12, 2025, 4:02 p.m. ET
The Environmental Protection Agency moved on Friday to stop requiring thousands of polluting facilities to report the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that they release into the air.
The E.P.A. proposal would end requirements for thousands of coal-burning power plants, oil refineries, steel mills and other industrial facilities across the country. The government has been collecting this data since 2010 and it is a key tool to track carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that are driving climate change.
The Friday announcement comes as the Trump administration has systematically erased mentions of climate change from government websites while slashing federal funding for research on global warming.
“Alongside President Trump, E.P.A. continues to live up to the promise of unleashing energy dominance that powers the American dream,” Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a statement. “The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape.”
Zeldin said that ending the program would save American businesses up to $2.4 billion in compliance costs. The New York Times could not independently verify that claim; representatives for E.P.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US EPA proposes end to mandatory greenhouse gas reporting (Reuters)
Critics said the proposal could hobble federal efforts to fight climate change, since the government cannot reduce emissions if it cannot measure how much is generated and where it is produced.
“With this move, they’re taking away the practical and material capacity of the federal government to do the basic elements of climate policymaking,” said Joseph Goffman, who led the E.P.A.’s air office during the Biden administration
For the past 15 years, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has collected data from about 8,000 of the country’s largest industrial facilities. That data has helped guide numerous decisions on federal policy and has been shared with the United Nations, which has required developed countries to submit tallies of their emissions.
In addition, private companies often rely on the program’s data to demonstrate to investors that their efforts to cut emissions are working. And communities often use it to determine whether local facilities are releasing air pollution that threatens public health.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month
