EPA Proposal to End Greenhouse Gas Reporting Raises Safety and Compliance Concerns

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Kevin Cramer are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its proposal to end key portions of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, citing risks to environmental transparency, compliance tracking, and workplace safety oversight.

• By Stasia DeMarco
• November 07, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed pausing or eliminating reporting obligations under the federal Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), a move that could affect industrial facilities, power plants and other large-emission sources across multiple sectors.
Since its inception in 2009, the program has collected facility-level greenhouse-gas (GHG) data from more than 8,000 facilities—data that businesses, regulators and safety professionals use to evaluate emission trends, exposure risks and operational impacts.
{"\u2060"}. With the proposed rule, the agency would remove reporting requirements for roughly 46 source categories and suspend further reporting obligations in other segments until 2034. This reduction in oversight may limit the availability of key data used to assess environmental and workplace risks. EPA+2EPA+2

From a health-and-safety standpoint, the change has two major implications:

1. Reduced transparency of emissions data — Safety managers rely on publicly reported GHG information to evaluate evolving hazards such as high-emitting processes, potential chemical releases or climate-driven heat stress conditions tied to industrial operations. Without consistent data, hazard assessments may become less robust.
2. Potential shift in compliance focus — If reporting obligations decline, industry programs may need to adapt. Facilities that have invested in emissions monitoring, data systems and risk reduction tied to GHG tracking could lose key metrics that helped drive preventive safety measures.

Industrial operations—particularly in sectors like manufacturing, power generation, chemical production and heavy industry—may face a strategic decision: continue voluntary reporting and integrate the data into safety and health systems, or adjust to a baseline of reduced regulatory data collection. In either scenario, safety professionals are encouraged to review their monitoring programs, integrate emissions-related data into workplace risk assessments and maintain documentation of hazard recognition, mitigation and exposure trends.

Organizations that have linked their GHG tracking systems to broader environmental, health and safety (EHS) programs may find the proposed changes trigger internal assessments of how emissions data support worker-safety protections, energy-use controls and climate-related exposure risks.

Looking ahead, the agency is accepting public comments and may revise the proposal before finalization. Companies and safety leaders should monitor developments closely, strengthen internal data-governance practices and continue embedding emissions and climate-risk intelligence into workplace-safety frameworks.