Washington, DC – The Trump Administration has put on hold EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which makes climate pollution data from industry available to the public. But the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has obtained the greenhouse gas emissions data for 2024 through a Freedom of Information Act request and is releasing it to ensure that the public has access to this important information about climate pollution.
The data are available on this EIP webpage. It is unclear if the Trump EPA will publish the data. Under normal circumstances, the data would have been released last fall. The numbers show that U.S. companies reported emitting 2.69 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2024, slightly less than what was reported in 2023, reflecting the continuation of a downward trend over the last decade and a half. Reported greenhouse gas emissions have steadily declined since 2011, largely due to the power sector’s transition away from burning coal, according to EPA.
“The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is the only tool we have for tracking exactly which industrial facilities are responsible for the emissions driving climate change,” said Courtney Bernhardt, Director of Research at the Environmental Integrity Project. “Eliminating it doesn’t make the problem go away — it just makes it easier for the biggest polluters to hide.”
At the end of February, the Trump EPA extended the deadline for major industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions to report their 2025 totals to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Administration officials have proposed sharply limiting the Congressionally- mandated program to only one industrial category – petroleum and natural gas systems – rather than the 47 categories of facilities, including power plants, refineries, chemicals manufacturing, electronics manufacturing, pulp and paper manufacturing and waste disposal, the program has grown to include since reporting began in 2010.
The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has been recognized as “the most comprehensive national inventory of greenhouse gas data in the world,” and the “gold standard of emission reporting.” Few states have their own mandatory reporting programs that could fill the void, while many depend on EPA’s program.
According to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, the rate of global warming is accelerating, and is now almost double what it was in the 1970s, with the last three years breaking previous temperature records. The industry-reported data available from the 16-year-old Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is critically important to help policymakers, scientists, and the public understand which industries are releasing the most pollution and what steps are working or failing to curb climate change.
Media contact:
Tom Pelton, Environmental Integrity Project, (443) 510-2574 or tpelton@environmentalintegrity.org
The Environmental Integrity Project is America’s environmental watchdog. We hold polluters and governments accountable to protect public health and the environment.
