Taking Credit for GHG Emissions Reduction Activities of the EPA’s State and Local Capacity Building Branch

Lynn Price and Emily Bartholomew, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Denise Mulholland, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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Abstract

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) State and Local Capacity Building Branch (SLCBB) contains programs that help states voluntarily develop and implement comprehensive environmental programs at the state and local levels intended to reduce air pollution, improve energy efficiency, promote economic development and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Throughout the 1990s, the Branch worked with state and local governments to achieve GHG emissions reductions through the provision of information about climate change impacts and mitigation opportunities, guidance documents, outreach and marketing support, and financial assistance to conduct analysis or demonstration projects.

Each year the EPA prepares an Annual Performance Plan and Congressional Justification as part of its proposed budget. One of the EPA’s strategic goals contained in this report is “Reduction of Global and Cross-Border Environmental Risks”. Programs designed to reach this goal include those with the objective to “Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. The programs designed to meet this objective for which performance measures are calculated include EPA’s buildings, industry, and transportation sector programs, as well as the carbon removal, international capacity building, global change research, and state and local programs. Annual metric tons of carbon equivalent savings from these programs are documented in each year’s Annual Performance Plan.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was commissioned by EPA’s SLCBB to develop and implement a methodology for calculating the GHG emissions reductions in each partner state and locality that can be attributed to SLCBB capacity building efforts, specifically to avoid “double-counting” with other EPA programs. This paper provides a description of the methodology, issues encountered, and results of estimating GHG emissions reductions attributed to the SLCBB for 2000, 2001, and 2002.