The Deadline That Keeps Moving

The Environmental Protection Agency published an interim final rule in the Federal Register on Wednesday 14 October that moves the deadline for annual greenhouse gas reports for reporting year 2025 from 30 October 2026 to 10 March 2027. The rule took effect on the day it was published. Comments are invited, but only after the fact: they are due on 30 November.

The new date is the third these reports have had. The agency’s explanation turns less on the burden of reporting than on its own unfinished business, and that is the part worth reading closely.

Three dates for one report

Under the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, in EPA’s words, “approximately 8,200 facilities, suppliers, and CO2 injection sites submit data each year.” The report for reporting year 2025 was originally due on 31 March 2026. A final rule of 27 February 2026 (91 FR 9712) moved it to 30 October 2026. The rule published on Wednesday amends 40 CFR 98.3(b)(6) to move it again, to 10 March 2027. By this publication’s count that is 131 days after the second deadline and 344 days after the first.

The stated purpose is “to allow the EPA additional time to consider comments on the GHGRP Reconsideration Proposal and to take any final action before the further extended reporting year 2025 deadline.” The rule adds that a later date lets regulated entities react to that decision: those whose obligations survive can prepare their reports, and if the agency finalises “all or most of the proposed rescissions and revisions,” they can “avoid wasted time and effort.” It also cites the electronic reporting system, e-GGRT, which EPA says it would typically release six weeks before a deadline and could not have ready for 30 October, and the risk of entities “inadvertently or hastily reporting erroneous or unnecessary information that could later be made public.”

The proposal the date is waiting on

The reconsideration proposal, published on 16 September 2025 (90 FR 44591), is why the deadline is unstable. Among other things, EPA says, it proposed “that no industries would need to submit annual GHG reports for calendar year 2025,” and the agency received more than 50,000 comments on it. A final decision that adopts the proposal in full would leave a deadline for reports nobody has to file; a decision that keeps all or part of the programme would leave reports due. The rule does not say which way the agency is leaning, and it does not give a date by which it expects to decide.

It does imply a working limit. If EPA keeps its usual practice of releasing the reporting system six weeks before a deadline, the system would need to be available by about 27 January 2027 for a 10 March deadline. That date is this publication’s arithmetic, not EPA’s.

Why no notice and comment

The agency relies on the Administrative Procedure Act’s good cause exception, 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B), which lets an agency skip prior notice and comment when that procedure is “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” EPA finds it impracticable and contrary to the public interest here because “there is not adequate time for the notice-and-comment process prior to the October 30, 2026 deadline that this interim final rule extends,” and because the reporting system could not be ready in time. The immediate effective date rests on a different provision, section 553(d)(1), which exempts from the 30-day wait a rule that “grants or recognizes an exemption or relieves a restriction.” Extending the deadline, EPA says, relieves one.

The time shortage the agency cites is measured against a date it set itself, in the February rule. Whether that is good cause is a legal question the rule asserts in a few paragraphs, and this piece takes no position on it. The rule says any subsequent final action on it will follow the procedures of Clean Air Act section 307(d), and that petitions for review of this rule must be filed in the D.C. Circuit by 14 December 2026.

The calendar after Wednesday

A request for a public hearing is due by 19 October; if anyone asks, EPA will hold a virtual hearing on 29 October. Comments close on 30 November, 47 days after publication. The reports themselves are now due on 10 March 2027.

EPA cites section 114 of the Clean Air Act for the reporting obligation, and section 136 for certain petroleum and natural gas segments. It says the rule imposes no new information collection burden, and it certifies that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities because it relieves burden. Until the reconsideration is final, the date on which reports are due and the question of whether they are due at all are being settled in two separate documents.