The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.

As part of its mandate to provide the Congress with the objective, timely, and nonpartisan analysis needed to make informed economic and budgetary decisions, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepares cost estimates for legislation under consideration by the Congress. In recent years, a number of legislative proposals have involved efforts to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases in the U.S. To estimate the budgetary impact of such proposals, CBO must first estimate the incremental costs to firms and households of mitigating greenhouse gases. This report briefly describes the methodology that CBO uses to estimate those incremental costs, the data sources and models used to develop that methodology, and the rationale for using it.