EDF, Allies File Comments Urging the Trump EPA to Continue the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program

(Washington, D.C. - November 3, 2025) Environmental Defense Fund joined other health, environmental and community groups from across the country today to formally urge the Trump administration not to eliminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program - the source of critically important information about the air pollution that causes climate change and makes life more dangerous, less healthy, and more expensive for all Americans.

EDF joined 67 other groups from all across America to file a letter with EPA expressing their "strong and unequivocal opposition" to EPA's proposed repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.

"The Reporting Program is foundational to our nation's ability to effectively address climate change, providing transparent, reliable, and comprehensive data on climate pollution across major economic sectors," the groups say in their letter. "The Reporting Program was established by EPA in response to clear congressional directives and under robust statutory authority … Its repeal would undermine decades of progress, erode public trust, harm American competitiveness, and jeopardize our ability to confront the climate crisis."

EDF also joined Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club, Clean Air Task Force, Earthjustice, Environmental Law & Policy Center and Earthworks to submit detailed comments outlining the value of the program and the strong legal authority underpinning it.

"The data collected through the Reporting Program has been used by EPA, policymakers, industry, and the public, and has been critical to reducing climate-warming pollution," the groups say in their comments. "EPA now proposes to dismantle the entire program in a damaging and irrational reversal of its longstanding approach. EPA's Proposal is unlawful and deeply harmful … We request that EPA withdraw its proposal and maintain the [Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program] in its entirety."

For well over a decade, EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has been a vital source of public information about climate pollution from some of the largest sources nationwide. It has provided critical information that makes it possible to protect people from climate change and all its ensuing damages - from worsening floods, fires and heat waves to rising insurance costs.

In March of this year, Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin shut down the program's reporting portal for over a month without explanation and then unlawfully tried to delay the deadlines for companies to report their climate pollution. EDF filed a lawsuit challenging those actions.

The Trump administration also refused to release this year's U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory - an annual accounting of pollution that uses Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program data. EDF got those documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them publicly available on our website in May.

In September, the Trump EPA proposed getting rid of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program altogether. EDF Senior Attorney Edwin LaMair pointed out that "eliminating information about pollution will not make the problem of climate change go away, it will only make it more expensive and difficult to deal with." He and two other EDF experts also testified at an EPA hearing in October.

Today is the last day to submit comments to EPA about its proposal. EDF and its allies repeated their deeply held opposition to the proposal in their detailed comments :

"The system that exists today is widely used and runs smoothly and predictably while posing minimal compliance burden. It doesn't need to be reconsidered, let alone almost entirely repealed. EPA's Proposal would deprive the Agency, Congress, states, industry, and the American public of data they could use to reduce this harmful pollution. This action is deeply misguided, plainly unlawful, and significantly harmful to a wide variety of stakeholders and the public."