Combined Air Emissions Reporting (CAER) streamlines environmental compliance for industry and governments

Various federal, state, local, and Tribal programs require industry to report information about air pollutant emissions to protect human health and the environment. Programs including the National Emissions Inventory (NEI), the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), and the Compliance and Emissions Data Reporting Interface (CEDRI) require reporting to separate systems on different timelines and with varying levels of support for electronic reporting.

While each program collects different data for distinct purposes, some information is common across programs and could be reported just once. In addition, some programs and agencies do not have resources to offer online reporting tools. Duplicative reporting requirements and inconsistent availability of online reporting can create inefficiencies and data quality issues for both industry and government.

E-Enterprise provides a framework and resources to help agency partners collaborate on a Product Design Team that is building the CAERS platform. State, local, and Tribal agencies can subscribe to use CAERS as a shared solution for industry to electronically report air emissions information.

CAERS is currently in use by programs in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, and Pima, Arizona. Industry in these subscribed jurisdictions can use CAERS to electronically report the emission of criteria air pollutants and other agency-specific hazardous air pollutants included in the National Emissions Inventory. In addition, reporters can also use CAERS to get a head start on reporting air emissions data required by the Toxic Release Inventory.

Participating agencies can retrieve industry-reported data via the CAERS application programming interface (API) for use in managing their air programs.

What’s next for the CAER project?

The CAERS Product Design Team continues to meet regularly to discuss new needs and further improvements to the system. Future work will include:

• Building additional CAERS functionality to refine data that can be made available to the Toxics Release Inventory.  
• Adding new data fields in CAERS that will support harmonization of facilities in the Emissions Inventory System and CEDRI.
• Exploring additional use cases or functionality needs that agencies may have for CAERS.

Please email the project contacts if your agency is interested in joining the Product Design Team to provide input and continuous improvement for CAERS.

CAER is helping to reduce redundancy in air emissions reporting and delivering efficient online reporting capabilities for agencies that need them. The project is producing benefits for a range of stakeholders:

• The Regulated Community: CAER delivers value for industry by reducing duplicative data entry, increasing reporting efficiency, and improving the user experience for reporters.
• The Public: CAER helps to improve the availability, timeliness, transparency, consistency, and quality of air emissions information.
• The Regulators: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states, Tribes, and local governments can access more timely information and spend less effort reviewing, compiling, and reconciling data.