The Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 Federal Register published its promised amendments to certain provisions in the agency's greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting rule. The changes include providing additional information on existing requirements, allowing simplified calculation methods for certain sources in a facility, amending data reporting requirements to provide additional clarity on when different types of GHG emissions need to be calculated and reported, clarifying terms and definitions in certain equations, and technical corrections.

Among the proposed changes, the EPA offered a new equation that would enable sources that receive natural gas billing data from their suppliers in therms to calculate CO₂ mass emissions directly from the information on the billing records, without having to request or obtain additional data from the fuel suppliers. The agency also removed calculations from "purge" actions associated with ammonia manufacturing and similar processes, since, as pointed out by commenters, these were already counted in another part of the process. Petroleum refineries were also given allowances for standard conditions in the molar volume conversion factor used in calculating their CO₂e.

The changes reflect the agency's plans for 2011 reporting, and do not affect 2010 monitoring reporting. The amendments also suggest that the agency is willing to listen closely to affected industries and their concerns.

These will not be the last changes made to the reporting rule for those facilities responsible for reporting in 2011. The agency noted it plans to have those guidelines finalized by the end of this year.

SOURCE: Federal Register notice: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-18354.htm