Whitehouse Demands EPA Halt Plans to Dissolve Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

Demand comes after documents obtained exclusively by EPW Democratic staff reveal new EPA plans to eliminate landmark money-saving and climate safety programs—another giveaway to the fossil fuel industry that helped elect Trump

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is demanding that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin halt plans to shutter the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program (GHGRP) and related offices and to reinstate any functions already dissolved. 

Documents obtained exclusively by Democratic staff of the EPW Committee show that EPA appears poised to eliminate in their entirety both the Climate Change Division, including its GHGRP branch, and the Climate Protection Partnership Division, including the popular Energy Star Program, both of which are housed in the Office of Atmospheric Protection (OAP) within the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR).  The GHGRP collects information about greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities and power plants.  The Energy Star program, which promotes energy efficiency in household appliances, has saved Americans more than half a trillion dollars over the last 30 years and has kept nearly four billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions out of the air.

 Documents obtained by EPW Democratic Staff show that EPA is poised to eliminate the money-saving programs.
View full sized images HERE and HERE.

“For the past 15 years, the GHGRP has collected facility-level emissions data from over 8,000 facilities, supplying vital information to policymakers, scientists, investors, and the public.  These data inform our national GHG inventory, support international emissions reporting obligations, and serve as the de facto standard for many companies’ climate disclosures in the absence of industry-wide methodologies,” wrote Ranking Member Whitehouse.

The Ranking Member also raised serious concerns about harms to American industry should the GHGRP be canceled.  American facilities and factories are far less carbon-intensive than their foreign competitors, which GHGRP-collected data have shown.  But without the program’s data, U.S. producers will lose their competitive advantage. 

“[E]limination of the GHGRP would likely harm the very companies supposed to benefit from fewer reporting requirements …. GHGRP data allows U.S. industry to market itself as cleaner than the competition, which increasingly commands a premium in domestic and foreign markets.  You will rob American industry of data giving competitive advantage over Chinese competitors,” continued the Ranking Member.

Alarmingly, the primary beneficiaries of the planned closure of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program are polluters like the fossil fuel industry, one of the largest contributors to Trump’s reelection.  Before the election, it was reported that the fossil fuel industry was drafting ready-to-sign executive orders for a possible second Trump Administration, and while on the campaign trail, Trump promised Big Oil that he would advance policies favorable to their industry in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions.  After Trump was elected, public reporting revealed that oil and gas trade groups were pushing for rollbacks on “burdensome regulations that are stifling investment, making us less competitive in the world, limiting innovation, and threatening the very jobs we are all working to create right here in America.”  The Trump Administration is now echoing the language of its polluting industry benefactors as it moves to eliminate GHGRP to their advantage.

“The agency’s stated justification … is that ‘industry trade associations’ requested the change to ‘reduce burden on oil and natural gas producers.’ … EPA’s recent actions—including the elimination of the GHGRP—continue the pattern of allowing polluters to dictate environmental policy.  Dismantling the GHGRP prioritizes polluter interests over the international competitiveness of the American steel, aluminum, fertilizer, cement, and chemicals industries, to name but a few,” concluded the Ranking Member.

Ranking Member Whitehouse is demanding answers from EPA Administrator Zeldin by May 14, 2025.

Full text of the letter (with footnotes) is available HERE.