Council committee adopts CAO report, aligns municipal GHG inventory with local government protocol and sets March 1 inventory deadline

A Los Angeles City committee voted to adopt a City Administrative Officer (CAO) report that reconciles differences in the municipal greenhouse-gas (GHG) inventory methodology and to amend the reporting deadline so inventories are finalized and presented to the council by March 1 each year.

The change aligns the city's municipal inventory with the Local Government Operations Protocol (LGOP), focusing reporting on emissions under the city's operational control rather than combining owned in-basin generation with purchased power. Daniel Grama, an environmental specialist with LA Sanitation, told the committee that the revised method “only includes in-basin power generation,” and that reconciling the methodology required conversations with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

Why it matters: The methodology change reduces the power generation component of the municipal inventory compared with the city's prior reporting. Under the previous approach (which included both owned and purchased power), the report showed a 62% reduction from baseline for power-generation emissions; using only in-basin generation reduces that component to a 41% reduction from baseline. The…