10 Things to Know About the GHG Reporting Program—Part 2
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6) Facility owners and operators, not the EPA, are responsible for determining the facility’s “Designated Representative.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), when facilities covered by the GHG Reporting rule have more than one person sharing responsibility for reporting, “the greenhouse gas reporting rule provides owners and operators the flexibility to determine among themselves an appropriate Designated Representative to certify and submit the annual report.”
7) The EPA, not a third party, verifies the accuracy of the GHG Reporting Program data. Using a multistep verification process, the EPA verifies data accuracy as follows:
- The EPA data entry tool used by facilities conducts data checks during the data entry phase, which is before the data are submitted to the EPA.
- After the data are submitted, “the EPA conducts a number of automated data checks that include ensuring that reports are internally consistent, checking the data against expected ranges for similar facilities and industries, and statistical analysis.”
- Using the results of the automated checks, the EPA conducts a staff review of the reported data.
- The EPA then follows up with facilities to resolve any mistakes that may have occurred.
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8) The GHG Reporting Program and the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (Inventory) are not the same. Although they may seem to contain the same information, the two data sources are actually quite different. According to the EPA, the Inventory, which fulfills our nation’s commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), “is a national assessment of total GHG emissions from man-made sources in the U.S.” The annual Inventory is developed using national energy data and statistics, but in many cases, the EPA says, “the emissions data in the Inventory cannot be broken down by location or facility.” On the other hand, the GHG Reporting Program data are collected on individual facilities, which provide data that are specific to those facilities and suppliers. For example, the 2013 GHG Reporting Program data include “public information from facilities in nine industry groups that directly emit large quantities of GHGs, as well as suppliers of certain fossil fuels and industrial gases.”
9) The general public and reporters can access the GHG Reporting Program data. The EPA makes the GHG data reported through the program available at http://ghgdata.epa.gov/ghgp/main.do. The system is called FLIGHT, which stands for the Facility Level Information on Greenhouse Gases Tool. The system allows users to search year, source, and facility/location, and to further narrow searches by state, GHG, emissions range, and verification/reporting status. In addition, users can view data in a number of different configurations, including a map, lists, graphs, and charts. Data searches can also be exported as a spreadsheet and the search Web page can be bookmarked to mobile devices.
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10) There several additional sources of GHG data for public use. In addition to EPA’s FLIGHT search system, the EPA also provides the following data sources:
- Data Highlights Website: A high-level summary of yearly GHG data reported to the EPA. These pages summarize GHGRP data nationally and by industry sector using maps, charts, and tables.
- 2013 Data Summary Spreadsheets (XLS): Contains the most important, high-level information for facilities, including reported GHG quantities, facility locations, and industry type(s). This file can be used for many common queries.
- Envirofacts: Provides all publicly available data collected by the GHGRP in a searchable, downloadable format for facilities in 32 industry types. This includes GHG data and much of the underlying data facilities use to determine GHG values and other reported data elements.
- 2013 Detailed Data for Additional Industry Types (XLS): Contains all publicly available data for facilities in industry types that are not available in Envirofacts.
All of these resources are available at http://epa.gov/ghgreporting/ghgdata/reportingdatasets.html.