This spring, the Combined Air Emissions Reporting (CAER) team, working closely with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), launched the first round of emissions inventory submissions through the Combined Air Emissions Reporting System (CAERS), formerly the Common Emissions Form (CEF). Currently, various federal, state, local, and tribal programs require industry to report air pollutant emissions to separate systems at different times of the year. This patchwork leads to redundancy and burden for both industry and government staff. The CAER project seeks to streamline air emissions reporting for facility reporters and regulators by creating a consolidated process for regulated entities to provide the latest facility attributes, emissions estimation input data, and shared emissions data only once. Georgia DNR staff and pilot facilities began testing CAERS in 2019, and facility reporters in Georgia are now using the system to report their 2019 National Emissions Inventory. Georgia DNR staff are able to review and test the emissions data in CAERS. Once review is complete, CAERS transmits the data to EPA’s Emissions Inventory System. Any toxics air emissions data reported to CAERS is also available on the Toxics Release Inventory system, TRI-MEweb. Currently GA DNR staff, CAER state leadership, and U.S. EPA are working to incorporate additional tools to increase CAERS usability for the 2020 NEI cycle. Next steps in the CAERS development include the incorporation of data from the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program and the Compliance and Emissions Data Reporting Interface and onboarding the District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment.
