Dakota Software's Metrics Simplifies Data Gathering, Analyzing and Reporting on EPA's Final Mandator

10/12/2009

Lisa Jackson, EPA’s new Administrator signed the Final Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) Rule on September 22, 2009. The rule establishes mandatory annual GHG reporting requirements for owners and operators of large GHG emission sources and certain fossil fuel and industrial GHG suppliers in the U.S. The gases covered by the proposed rule are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons (PFC), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and other fluorinated gases including nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and hydrofluorinated ethers (HFE). The new program is expected to cover approximately 85 percent of the nation’s GHG emissions and apply to roughly 10,000 facilities. To comply with the new rule, facilities must first determine whether or not they exceed any of the applicability thresholds. If they do, they must comply with the rule’s General Provisions (Subpart A), which include requirements for general monitoring, data collection, reporting, recordkeeping, and emissions verification. Once subject to the rule, facilities must then determine whether they are subject to any of the thirty source categories included in the rule (Subparts C through PP), and must then comply with all applicable source category-specific requirements and procedures for calculating emissions, monitoring and QA/QC, estimating missing data, reporting, and recordkeeping. Eleven additional source categories are still under review by the EPA and may be added to the rule in future rulemaking decisions. Data collection under the new GHG rule for calendar year 2010 will begin on January 1, 2010, with the first annual GHG report due to the EPA on March 31, 2011. Although this rule has not yet been published in the Federal Register, Dakota Software is actively developing functionality that addresses its requirements and will distribute those changes in an upcoming release. Users can anticipate having expanded tools for identifying new regulatory information and tracking the subsequent revisions and additions that will no doubt follow. These changes can then be incorporated into company and facility profiles to drive needed changes to compliance programs. To further enable proactive compliance with the new GHG rule, Dakota Software has launched and integrated Metrics into the suite of ProActivity products. Metrics simplifies data gathering, analyzing and reporting on GHG and other company-specific sustainability measurements. It provides verifiable audit trails and simplifies data collection using smart forms. To ensure accurate sustainability monitoring and reporting, Metrics consolidates data at the enterprise level and displays related EHS data in a flexible, easy-to-read dashboard format. To view a copy of the Final Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule, please visit the EPA’s website at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ghgrulemaking.html.