Rescinding Reporting Requirements, Certification, Independent Verification, and DOE Review for Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <CFR>10 CFR Part 300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[EERE-2025-OT-0034]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1904-AG05</RIN> <SUBJECT>Rescinding Reporting Requirements, Certification, Independent Verification, and DOE Review for Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Energy (DOE or the Department) is proposing to rescind reporting requirements, certification, independent verification, and DOE review for the Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. DOE seeks all comments on any aspects of this proposal. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Written comments and information are requested and will be accepted on or before June 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are encouraged to submit comments using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> under docket number EERE-2025-OT-0034. Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Alternatively, interested persons may submit comments, identified by docket number EERE-2025-OT-0034 and or regulatory identification number (RIN) 1904-AG05, by any of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Email: GreenhouseGas2025OT0034@ee.doe.gov.</E> Include the docket number EERE-2025-OT-0034 and/or RIN 1904-AG05 in the subject line of the message. Submit electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel or PDF file format, and avoid the use of special characters or any form of encryption. No telefacsimiles (faxes) will be accepted. <E T="03">Docket:</E> The docket for this rulemaking, which includes <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices, comments, and other supporting documents and materials, is available for review at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> All documents in the docket are listed in the <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> index. However, not all documents listed in the index may be publicly available, such as information that is exempt from public disclosure. The docket web page can be found at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/EERE-2025-OT-0034.</E> The docket web page contains instructions on how to access all documents, including public comments, in the docket, as well as a summary of the rulemaking. In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may be found at <E T="03">regulations.gov</E> , under the docket number EERE-2025-OT-0034. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Email: <E T="03">EIA-FRNcomments@eia.gov.</E> Mr. David Taggert, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel, GC-1, 1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20585-0121. Telephone: (202) 586-5281. Email: <E T="03">DOEGeneralCounsel@hq.doe.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Discussion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Review Under Executive Order 12988</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Review Under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 1999</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Review Under Executive Order 12630</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Review Under the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2001</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Review Under Executive Order 13211</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Approval of the Office of the Secretary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> The Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program allows corporations, government agencies, other public and private entities, and even households to file voluntary reports about their greenhouse gas emissions. DOE regulations set the requirements for, and DOE intake of, these reports. DOE regulations set a specific deadline for annual reports, require entities to maintain adequate records, and follow detailed procedures to revise reports. 10 CFR 300.9. DOE regulations require a detailed certification statement. 10 CFR 300.10. DOE regulations also encourage independent verification of reports by professional verifiers. 10 CFR 300.11. Furthermore, DOE regulations require review of “all reports for completeness, internal consistency, arithmetic accuracy and plausibility.” 10 CFR 300.12. DOE is proposing to rescind these reporting requirements, certification statements, the encouragement of independent verification, and DOE review. The regulations will retain, consistent with 42 U.S.C. 13385, detailed procedures for voluntarily calculating and submitting greenhouse gas emissions, codified in the rest of 10 CFR part 300. DOE seeks comment on all aspects of that proposal, including but not limited to 10 CFR part 300's consistency with statutory authority and the constitution, the costs and benefits, and the part's effect on innovation, development, and private enterprise. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Procedural Issues and Regulatory Review</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Review Under Executive Orders 12866</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866, “Regulatory Planning and Review,” requires agencies, to the extent permitted by law, to (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits; (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Review Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) requires preparation of an initial regulatory flexibility analysis (IRFA) and a final regulatory flexibility analysis (FRFA) for any rule that by law must be proposed for public comment, unless the agency certifies that the rule, if promulgated, will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. As required by E.O. 13272, “Proper Consideration of Small Entities in Agency Rulemaking,” 67 FR 53461 (August 16, 2002), DOE published procedures and policies on February 19, 2003, to ensure that the potential impacts of its rules on small entities are properly considered during the rulemaking process. 68 FR 7990. DOE has made its procedures and policies available on the Office of the General Counsel's website ( <E T="03">www.energy.gov/gc/office-general-counsel</E> ). DOE reviewed this proposed rule under the provisions of the Regulatory Flexibility Act and the policies and procedures published on February 19, 2003. This proposal eliminates requirements. Therefore, DOE initially concludes that the impacts of the proposed action would not have a “significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities,” and, therefore, the preparation of an IRFA is not warranted. DOE will transmit this certification and supporting statement of factual basis to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration for review under 5 U.S.C. 605(b). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Review Under the Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This proposed action imposes no new information or record-keeping requirements. Accordingly, OMB clearance is not required under the Paperwork Reduction Act. (44 U.S.C. 3501 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Review Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</HD> DOE is analyzing this proposed action in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended, (NEPA) and DOE's NEPA implementing regulations (10 CFR part 1021). DOE's regulations include categorical exclusions for certain rulemakings. See 10 CFR part 1021, subpart D, appendices A and B. DOE is considering the categorical exclusions potentially applicable to this proposed rule and welcomes comment on the potential application of categorical exclusion(s). DOE will complete its NEPA review before issuing the final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Review Under Executive Order 13132</HD> E.O. 13132, “Federalism,” 64 FR 43255 (August 10, 1999), imposes certain requirements on Federal agencies formulating and implementing policies or regulations that preempt State law or that have federalism implications. The Executive order requires agencies to examine the constitutional and statutory authority supporting any action that would limit the policymaking discretion of the States and to carefully assess the necessity for such actions. The Executive order also requires agencies to have an accountable process to ensure meaningful and timely input by State and local officials in the development of regulatory policies that ha ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━