Building a Consolidated Emissions Reporting Schema

1
Building a ConsolidatedEmissions Reporting Schema

• Exchange Network Conference
• April 30, 2008
• Nashville, TN

2
Background

• EIS Project Team asked to investigate merging
  different program schemas
• Meetings held with various program offices
• Decision made to move forward and develop the
  Consolidated Emissions Reporting Schema

3
Supported Data Flows

• State/Local/Tribes to EPA
• Emissions Inventory System (EIS)
• Corporate Entities to Non-Regulatory Reporting
  Agencies
• The Climate Registry (TCR)
• EPA to State
• Regional Green House Gas Initiative (RGGI)
• New York Acid Deposition Allowance Tracking
  (NADATS)
• Facility to State
• California Air Resource Board (GHG Emissions
  Tracking for AB-32)
• Air Force Military Base Emissions Reporting

4
The Emissions Inventory System

• Will generate the National Emissions Inventory
• Will allow for direct State, Local and Tribal
  agency access
• Will link to other program systems for direct
  data sharing
• Will rely on the Exchange Network and CDX

5
The Emissions Inventory System

• Implementation schedule
• October 2008 Access to the system through the
  EIS Gateway
• July 2009 Submission access
• December 2009 Public access to data

6
The Air Force Project

• Air Force has active duty bases in 31 states,
  with 13 of the 31 having multiple bases
• Majority have a requirement to report annual
  emission inventory data to their State
• Air Force uses almost 50 different formats to
  report data to States

7
The Air Force Project

• Develop a schema to be used by industrial and
  military bases
• Establish an Air Force node on the Exchange
  Network
• Use XML, CDX, Schematron
• Fifteen bases in six States agreed to be part of
  the project

8
Benefits of a Consolidated Schema

• Advances the goal of developing a standard schema
  for sharing emissions data among stakeholders,
  e.g., Industry to State, State to EPA, Industry
  to EPA, State to State
• Addresses the requests by States to have one
  schema to use for multiple programs
• Creates a building block for the mandatory
  Greenhouse Gas program

9
Challenges of a Consolidated Schema

• Governance issues
• Who owns the schema?
• Who is responsible for updating the schema?
• Compromises on business rules
• Requires buy-in from multiple entities (OAQPS,
  OAP, TCR)

10
Designing the Schema

• The EIS schema was not designed to minimize the
  file size.
• The EIS schema contains no business rules
• Data types are not enforced by the EIS XML
  schema.
• Components can be shared among the different data
  categories

11
Designing the Schema

• Element tag names adhere to EPA's XML data
  standards.
• Tag names were written to be understandable
• Tag names specific to a data category reflect
  this where possible in order to minimize
  ambiguity
• No two different elements or attributes share the
  same tag name.

12
Issues to Overcome

• Add new components to support The Climate
  Registry
• Add new data elements to support The Climate
  Registry and the Air Force project
• Make certain data elements more generic so they
  can be used by all programs
• Process level emissions vs. scope levels and
  activity

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Schema Components

• Facility Inventory
• Emissions Units and Activities
• Release Points
• Controls and Regulations
• Cross-walk Identifiers
• Nonpoint and Mobile Emissions
• Excluded Areas
• Geospatial Support
• Controls and Regulations
• Emissions and Emissions Processes
• Variable Reporting Periods
• CO2 Equivalent Emissions
• Activity and Source Input Parameters
• Operating Data

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Schema Components(contd)

• Events
• Wildfires
• Prescribed and Agricultural Fires
• Geospatial File Support
• Verification Findings for
• Facility Sites
• Emission Units
• Emissions for Reporting Period
• Organizations and Individuals
• Relationship with Facility Sites and Verification
  Findings
• Address
• Contact Information

15
Schedule

• March 13th April 2nd
• Resolve outstanding issues
• Develop domain model
• April 2nd April 30th
• Develop draft schema
• May
• Internal review
• Summer
• Stakeholder review
• Finalize in October

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How Will Data Be Submitted?

• Emissions Inventory System
• Exchange Network node
• Node Client
• CDX Web
• The Climate Registry
• Facility to TCR
• Air Force Project
• Exchange Network Node
• CDX Web

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Questions?