1605(b) Enhancement Plan Announced


The Secretary of Energy was joined by the Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture and the Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency in submitting recommendations for enhancing the Voluntary Reporting or Greenhouse Gases Program in a July 8, 2002 letter to President Bush. These recommendations were prepared in response to the President's directive, included in his February 14, 2002 Climate Change Initiative, to propose improvements to the current voluntary emission reduction registration program. These improvements are intended to create world-class standards for measuring and registering emission reductions and serve as a means to provide transferable credits to companies that can show real emission reductions. Specifically, the recommended improvements should accomplish the following:

  • Develop fair, objective, and practical methods for reporting baselines, reporting boundaries, calculating results, and awarding transferable credits for actions that lead to real reductions;
  • Standardize transparent accounting methods;
  • Support independent verification of registry reports;
  • Encourage reporters to report greenhouse gas intensity as well as emissions or emissions reductions;
  • Encourage corporate or entity-wide reporting;
  • Provide credits for actions to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well as for actions to reduce emissions;

  • Develop a process for evaluating the extent to which past reductions may qualify for credits;
  • Assure the registry is an effective tool for reaching the President's goal of cutting greenhouse intensity by 18 percent;
  • Factor in international strategies as well as state-level efforts;
  • Minimize transaction costs for reporters and administrative costs for the Government , where possible, without compromising the foregoing recommendations.

In order to implement these improvements, the Department of Energy intends to develop a more rigorous guidelines that will help encourage future reports that are reliable, objective, and verifiable. The resulting enhanced 1605(b) program should have the abouve mentioned reforms fully incorporated to be effective for the 2003 data reporting cycle (for data through 2003 reported in 2004).

Information on the President's Climat Change Initiative can be found at http://www.pi.energy.gov/enhancingGHGregistry/statements.html. The text of the Secretaries' recommendations is available at http://www.pi.energy.gov/ enhancingGHGregistry/letterjuly802.pdf.


Voluntary Reporting Workshops

In November and December, the Department of Energy’s Office of Policy and International Affairs will host a series of four workshops for the Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program. The workshops will address issues involving the enhancement of the Program and all affected utilities, businesses, institutions, environmental groups, and other interests are invited to participate. Each workshop is expected to have the same agenda, although slight revisions may occur to reflect concerns and issues raised at previous workshops. The schedule and locations for the workshops are as follows:

Washington D.C., November 18-19
Hilton Crystal City at National Airport
2399 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202
For hotel reservations call:
1-800-774-1500 or (703) 418-6800

Chicago, December 5-6
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
Hotel Sofitel Chicago O’Hare
5555 and 5550 North River Road

San Francisco, December 9-10
Best Western Grosvenor Hotel
380 South Airport Boulevard So.
San Francisco, CA 94080
For hotel reservations call:
1-800-722-7141 or (650) 873-3200

Houston, December 12-13
Houston Airport Marriott
18700 John F. Kennedy Blvd.
Houston, TX 77032
For hotel reservations call:
1-800-228-9290 or (281) 443-2310



Register soon! Attendance is limited to 300 in Washington, D.C., and 200 at the other locations. Hotel rooms will be held until three weeks before each workshop. To register, go to http://www.pi.energy. gov/enhancingGHGregistry/workshopsInfo.html, call (202) 481-8550, or send an e-mail to 1605b.workshops@hq.doe.gov.




Congratulations to Allergan, Inc.!

Congratulations to California Flex Your Power Energy Award recipient Allergan, Inc.! The Flex Your Power Energy Award is given by the governor to businesses, professional and trade associations, state, local and regional governmental entities, and community-based organizations located in California that have demonstrated exceptional energy conservation and efficiency. Allergan, Inc. has documented its energy savings and the resulting reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in reports to the Voluntary Reporting Program for the last four years. Well done, Allergan, Inc.!

2001 Reporting Cycle Closes

With the closing of the Energy Information Administration’s 2001 data reporting cycle, we are pleased to bring you some preliminary statistics. In this, the 8th reporting cycle for the Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program, 229 reports will be included in the 2001 Public Use Database. This represents a 3 percent increase over the 222 reports submitted in time to be included in the 2000 Public Use Database last year. A total of 1,706 projects were included in the 2001 reports received. (See the pie graph below for a breakdown of projects by type.)


The 2001 Public Use Database will reflect the inclusion of 14 additional 2000 reports that were received after last year’s database was finalized. The final count for 2000 includes a total of 236 reporters, 199 of which reported on the long form and 37 of which reported on the EZ form. A brief summary of the 2001 emission reduction data will be available in the next edition of The Greenhouse Gas Volunteer. Finalized information will be published in our annual report, Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases 2001, expected out late this year or early 2003.




For More Information About Voluntary Reporting...

Voice: 1-800-803-5182 or 202-586-0688 Fax: (202) 586-3045
E-mail: infoghg@eia.doe.gov
Internet: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/frntvrgg.html
FTP: ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/oiaf/1605/cdrom/
Mailing Address: Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Program,
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, EI-81
1000 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20585.