Sponsor
Adam Schiff
Senator · D-CA
Senator · D-CA
The bill delivers uniform EPA guidance that improves transparency and comparability of corporate scope 3 emissions but creates compliance costs and potential market penalties for firms, with a tight one-year timeline that risks producing guidance needing later revision.
Facilities and companies (including utilities and energy firms and small businesses) will receive standardized EPA guidance to calculate and report scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, reducing measurement uncertainty for compliance and voluntary disclosure.
Investors, consumers, and other stakeholders will get more comparable and higher-quality corporate GHG inventories, making it easier to assess and compare companies' emissions performance.
Firms (utilities and small businesses) will have clearer procedures on monitoring frequency and missing-data estimation, which can lower ongoing reporting burdens and compliance uncertainty over time.
Companies (particularly small businesses and utilities) will face direct compliance costs to collect, calculate, and retain scope 3 emissions data in line with EPA guidance.
Firms that disclose high scope 3 emissions may suffer market or procurement consequences (reduced competitiveness or lost contracts) if the guidance becomes a de facto expectation.
A one-year deadline for EPA to issue guidance may limit stakeholder engagement and technical development, increasing the risk of rushed guidance that requires later revisions and complicates implementation for federal and state agencies and regulated firms.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Requires EPA to complete, within 1 year, a study and publish guidance for calculating and reporting scope 3 GHG emissions for specified direct-emitting facilities, including methods, thresholds, QA/QC, and recordkeeping.
Official title: Direct the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a study, and publish guidance on, calculating and reporting scope 3 emissions.
Introduced February 26, 2026 by Adam Schiff · Last progress February 26, 2026
Requires the EPA Administrator to complete, within one year of enactment, a study and publish binding guidance for calculating and reporting scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for specified “direct emitter” facilities. The guidance must define covered gases, recommend reporting thresholds and calculation methodologies, set monitoring and QA/QC practices, provide methods for estimating missing data, and describe recordkeeping and reporting expectations; it does not change existing federal or state authorities.