The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will receive a $5m envelope from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was passed into law on Tuesday (22 August).
The money is intended to support EPA's efforts to ensure "enhanced standardization and transparency of corporate climate action commitments and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" and "enhanced transparency regarding progress toward meeting" such commitments and plans.
EPA told Corporate Disclosures that it is currently reviewing the legislation and could not give and further information on how it intends to use the funding and these efforts will align with the SEC's proposed rule on climate disclosures.
The standardization of greenhouse gas emissions reporting will likely build on EPA's existing Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GGRP) which "requires reporting of GHG data and other relevant information from large GHG emission sources, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, and CO2 injection sites in the United States".
EPA administrator Michael Regan called the act a "game-changer for the American people" and added that the agency was "ready to advance President Biden's bold environmental agenda".
The funding comes only a few months after EPA lost a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court, which opined that the agency could not pass regulations without congressional authorization.