Now Boarding: Mississippi Facilities to CAERS Version 5

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Combined Air Emissions Reporting System (CAERS) is officially being rolled out to 11 Mississippi pilot facilities in 2024!

U.S. EPA hosted a training in December 2023 with Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to welcome Mississippi facilities to CAERS for reporting year (RY) 2023. The pilot Mississippi facilities that are required to report emissions for RY2023 will be expected to submit their reports using CAERS on or before July 1^st.

Even if your facility isn’t required to report in CAERS this year, read on for some more information about what CAERS is!

What is CAERS?

CAERS is an online portal for facilities located within enrolled state, local, and tribal (SLT) programs to report air emissions annually or triennially in accordance with the Air Emissions Reporting Requirements (AERR) Rule.  The portal is housed within U.S. EPA’s Central Data Exchange (CDX) platform and aims to decrease the amount of repeat data entry that is done by facilities. Currently, air emissions reported in CAERS can be imported in Section 5.2 of the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) and U.S. EPA hopes to link CAERS to other reporting platforms in the future, such as the electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool (e-GGRT), to further reduce repeated data entry by facilities.

I’m a facility located in Mississippi, what do I need to do to access CAERS?

A CAERS Subscriber Agreement must be completed by each facility that will report annual emissions within CAERS. The Subscriber Agreement (available here) must be signed by the responsible official who will be submitting and certifying the annual emissions report. Submission of the Subscriber Agreement also serves to register the responsible official as the Certifier in CAERS. Note that only one person is allowed to be listed as a Certifier for each facility. However, one person can be listed as a Certifier for multiple facilities. A few items to note about completing and submitting the Subscriber Agreement:

• The responsible official must already have an account in CDX prior to submitting the Subscriber Agreement.
• The signed Subscriber Agreement must be submitted as an attachment to a signed cover letter that is printed on the company’s letterhead.
• The signed cover letter and signed Subscriber Agreement can either be submitted as an original hard copy or as a scanned attachment via email. Both the mailing address and email address for submission are provided in the Subscriber Agreement.
• If you would like to authorize a person as the Certifier who is not the responsible official, you must also complete and submit MDEQ’s “Duly Authorized Representative (DAR) Designation Form (AIR Only)” that is available on MDEQ’s website.

If you are not the Certifier, you can request access to CAERS as a Preparer within CDX without going through the Subscriber Agreement process. Once you have logged in to your existing CDX account or created a new CDX account, you can add the “CAER: Combined Air Emissions Reporting” to your active program services list and follow the prompts to request access to your facility as a Preparer. Once all steps have been completed, you will be able to access the CAERS My Facilities page and request access to your facility in CAERS specifically. MDEQ will review the request in CAERS to ensure it matches the information submitted in CDX prior to granting the facility access request.

How do I complete my emissions report in CAERS?

Once Preparer and Certifier roles are established, you are now able to begin completing your emissions report in CAERS. CAERS offers multiple ways to develop your emissions report – data entry via the user interface, data entry via the bulk upload spreadsheet and file upload, or JSON file upload.

If your facility is brand new to CAERS, it is recommended that you start with the user interface option to establish your facility’s set-up. The CAERS user interface has built-in quality assurance (QA) checks that alert you immediately if something has been entered incorrectly. If you have submitted an AERR to MDEQ previously, some of the facility information will be pre-populated. Once your facility is set-up correctly in CAERS, you can then download the bulk upload spreadsheet template, which will now be filled in with your facility-specific information and complete your emissions data entry using the spreadsheet.

Once you are done with your report in CAERS, you will be required to run a QA check of your report and address any errors prior to submission. Pro-tip: you can complete these QA checks at any point during report development to check for errors as you go! Once your report passes the QA check, you are then able to notify the Certifier within CAERS that the report is ready for their review/submission or submit the report directly if you have Certifier access.

ALL4 has been assisting facilities with reporting through CAERS since its creation and will be helping other Mississippi facilities navigate reporting in CAERS for the first time. Although only the pilot facilities will be required to report in CAERS this year, you can be taking steps now to get ready for CAERS in the future. If you have any questions about setting up your account in CAERS or developing your emissions report in CAERS, please reach out to Stacy Arner-Jenkins at sarner@all4inc.com!