Emissions Regulation: A New Era Dawns

Ten years ago, sustainability was a blip on the radar, a notion only familiar to those within environmental circles. Today, it stands at the forefront of public consciousness, as evidenced by December's climate change pact among industrialized nations in Copenhagen.

As countries around the world begin taking steps to address global warming, some of the largest corporations in the United States are already springing into action. Sensing new regulations not too far behind, many have begun mobilizing for what they believe has long been looming on the horizon — a day when all of industry will be required to make dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

That day seemed to inch a bit closer when the White House presented in Copenhagen a provisional target to reduce greenhouse gases from 2005 levels 17% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

“We know it's coming,” says Mary Armstrong, vice president of environment, health and safety at aerospace giant Boeing. “Whatever vehicle it ends up being — whether as a cap-and-trade mechanism or a tax — it all boils down to the fact that there will be a cost to emitting carbon.”

Gathering Data

One of the first significant steps toward emissions regulations arrived on Jan. 1, 2010, when the EPA began a national registry that requires large emitters of heat-trapping gases to collect their greenhouse gas data.

The information from those reports will be released in 2011 publicly. Businesses that emit at least 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year would have to participate, which is expected to encompass about 10,000 facilities.

The EPA is hoping that the threat of appearing as one of the top U.S. industrial sources of greenhouse gases will spur companies to voluntarily slash their emissions. According to the EPA's top air official, Gina McCarthy, the emissions registry could have an impact similar to that of the Toxics Release Inventory, which, since its inception in 1987, has been credited with spurring substantial reductions in toxic emissions.

An emissions registry has been anticipated for some time, and some of the largest emitters in the United States have been tracking their energy usage for years, including such corporations as Hewlett-Packard, Boeing and Duke Energy. IBM has emissions data dating back to 1990 and has been publishing reports on it for the last 15 years with the Energy Department.

“The registry shouldn't be hugely onerous at all,” says Victor Flatt, professor of environmental law at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Law. “These facilities are already regulated, they already have to do reports (for other regulations) and the calculation of carbon dioxide release is not very complicated.”

Impact Not Equal

Traditionally, the lines on environmental legislation have been drawn between the perspectives of conservatives and liberals, between those that were adamantly protecting the interests of business versus those protecting the ecosystem. But emissions regulation has in many ways split the pro-business ranks, as corporate interests aren't all necessarily served by a single stance.

Opposition to carbon emissions regulations has been stiff. Last June, the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive bill putting caps on emissions, but the Senate still hasn't taken up the issue. Meanwhile, several of the most powerful business groups in the United States, such as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are using all their lobbying power to kill the Senate bill.

One of the primary points of contention within industry is that dealing with climate change will almost certainly hurt some industries, while enriching others. Billions of dollars are at stake. Depending on how regulations are implemented, electricity bills in some states could rise significantly, as well as the price for gasoline.