EPA Delays 2025 Greenhouse Gas Reporting Deadline to October 2026 as It Weighs Rollback

For more than a decade, March 31 has been the date when the nation’s biggest industrial polluters must tell the federal government how much climate-warming gas they released the previous year. That routine is about to change.

Deadline pushed to Oct. 30, 2026

The Environmental Protection Agency has pushed back the deadline for 2025 greenhouse gas reports by seven months, to Oct. 30, 2026, giving more than 8,000 facilities extra time to file. The move affects power plants, oil and gas operations, refineries, factories, landfills and other large sources that report under the federal Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP).

EPA officials describe the change as a narrow, one-time adjustment meant to give industry more flexibility while the agency reconsiders the future of the reporting program itself. Environmental groups and some state officials see something else: a step that could result in 2025 industrial emissions never being reported at all.

The final rule, titled “Extending the Reporting Deadline Under the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule for 2025,” was published Feb. 27 in the Federal Register and took effect immediately. It amends the general reporting schedule in 40 CFR 98.3 to specify that “the annual GHG report for reporting year 2025 must be submitted no later than October 30, 2026.”

Who it applies to

The change applies only to data for 2025, but it covers the full universe of GHGRP reporters—owners and operators of facilities that directly emit greenhouse gases, supply fuels and industrial gases, or inject carbon dioxide underground. EPA’s most recent data show more than 8,000 facilities and suppliers report each year across 47 source categories, ranging from coal-fired power plants and cement kilns to municipal landfills and oil and gas production fields.

Under the program’s long-standing rules, those facilities have typically submitted their annual reports by March 31 of the following year. EPA then reviews the data and publishes most of it later in the year through an online tool that allows the public to see emissions by facility, sector and location.

Extension follows broader proposal to scale back reporting

The 2025 deadline extension follows a shorter, two-month delay EPA granted for 2024 data, moving that deadline from March 31, 2025, to May 30, 2025. What makes the new seven-month extension unusual is its timing and length—and the broader policy changes moving alongside it.

On Sept. 16, 2025, EPA proposed a separate rule to fundamentally scale back the GHGRP. That proposal, known inside the agency as the GHGRP reconsideration, would permanently end federal greenhouse gas reporting after 2024 for 46 of the program’s 47 source categories. For the remaining category covering petroleum and natural gas systems, the proposal would cancel reporting for natural gas distribution systems after 2024 and suspend reporting for the other segments until 2034.

In that September proposal, EPA also floated extending the 2025 reporting deadline for all covered sources to June 10, 2026. The new final rule adopts only the deadline portion—and extends it further, to Oct. 30—while the agency continues to weigh whether to finalize the broader rollback.

EPA says it now expects to complete that broader rule by July 2026, months before the new 2025 reporting deadline.

In the preamble to the deadline rule, EPA states that the extension “will allow the EPA time to consider comments on the GHGRP Reconsideration Proposal and to take any final actions before the revised RY2025 reporting deadline of October 30, 2026.” The agency received more than 50,000 comments on the rollback plan and held a public hearing on Oct. 1, 2025.

EPA: More certainty for companies, time to adjust systems

Agency officials also say the new deadline responds to requests from companies and trade groups. Commenters told EPA that a June 10 deadline would not leave enough time to adjust reporting systems if the rollback is finalized, and some asked the agency to ensure companies would not invest in preparing 2025 reports that might later be deemed unnecessary.

In response, EPA wrote that a longer extension “would better achieve the goal of providing greater certainty to the obligated stakeholders and provide appropriate compliance time.” The agency said the delay will also give it time to prepare its electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool, known as e-GGRT, in case reporters must still use it for 2025 data.

The agency invoked a provision in the Administrative Procedure Act that allows certain rules that “grant or recognize an exemption or relieve a restriction” to take effect immediately upon publication, rather than after a 30-day waiting period. EPA argues the deadline change only relieves existing reporting obligations and does not impose new burdens.

The rule is being processed under section 307(d) of the Clean Air Act, which governs certain air pollution regulations. Any petitions for judicial review must be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by April 28.

Critics: Extension could leave a gap in public emissions data

Environmental advocates contend the immediate effect and long extension add up to more than a convenience for industry.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement that by moving the deadline to October “while indicating that the agency will likely repeal the program before then,” EPA is seeking to keep data on climate-warming emissions “hidden from the public.” David Doniger, a senior attorney at NRDC, said the administration is “attacking the public’s right to know the basics about which companies emit dangerous climate pollution and where they are located,” and signaled that legal challenges are likely.

The Trump administration has made cutting climate and environmental regulations a central priority of its domestic agenda. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, announcing the GHGRP rollback proposal last year, criticized the reporting program as “nothing more than bureaucratic red tape that does nothing to improve air quality.”

Industry groups and compliance advisers, by contrast, have largely welcomed the deadline change itself. Environmental, health and safety consultants have described the extension as crucial flexibility for companies that are upgrading emissions-tracking software and adjusting to changing requirements.

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy praised the rule as a burden-reducing step that allows facilities more time to respond to anticipated changes in the program. In client alerts, some consulting firms have also noted that, if EPA finalizes the rollback before Oct. 30, many of the 46 categories slated for elimination could avoid filing 2025 reports at all.

Why it matters for states and markets

The stakes reach beyond Washington. States including California and New York have built or are building their own mandatory greenhouse gas reporting systems, and their regulators have long relied on federal GHGRP data to design state-level climate policies. Lawmakers and state officials have called the federal data set a de facto standard for corporate emissions disclosures used by investors and lenders.

If federal reporting for 2025 is delayed or canceled for large parts of the industrial sector, state agencies and financial markets may have to lean more heavily on state programs, voluntary corporate reports and private data vendors to track emissions. That could fragment the picture of U.S. industrial greenhouse gas pollution and make it harder to compare facilities and companies across jurisdictions.

Since GHGRP began publishing data in 2010, reported emissions from large industrial sources have generally declined, driven in part by the retirement of coal-fired power plants. The program’s facility-level data underpin academic research, federal and state rulemakings, local environmental justice campaigns and corporate climate-risk assessments.

Whether 2025 becomes a gap in that record will depend on decisions still to come. EPA’s broader reconsideration of the reporting program is expected later this year. The new October deadline means that, for now, companies will not have to submit 2025 data until after that decision—and any ensuing court fights—begins to play out.