Federal data guide
Environment & Energy Data
A guide to the federal datasets behind US environmental regulation and the energy system — the EPA records of pollution, waste, water, air, and enforcement; the EIA inventory of the power grid; the FERC market watchdog; and the USGS water and renewable-energy data. Each links to a full deep-dive.
Two agencies anchor this domain. The EPA regulates pollution across every medium — hazardous waste under RCRA, chemical releases through the Toxic Release Inventory, air under the Clean Air Act, drinking water under the SDWA — and integrates it all in the ECHO enforcement system. The EIA, the Energy Department’s statistics arm, catalogs every power plant and generator, who owns them, and what they produce, while FERC polices the wholesale markets and the USGS tracks water and renewable resources. Together they map what the country emits and how it powers itself. The guides group the deep-dives and point to the cross-dataset analyses.
EPA: pollution, waste & enforcement
Hazardous waste, toxic releases, and the integrated enforcement layer.
- Following EPA enforcement: using ECHO data to track environmental violations and penalties — the ECHO enforcement system
- EPA RCRA Hazardous Waste Data: The Federal Database Behind 400,000 Regulated Facilities — hazardous-waste handlers
- EPA Toxic Release Inventory: 35 Years of Industrial Chemical Releases and Environmental Justice Patterns — industrial chemical releases
- EPA Pollutant Emissions: The Federal Database Behind 10 Million Facility-Level Air and Toxic Release Records — facility-level emissions
EPA: air & water
Clean Air Act compliance, drinking water, and greenhouse gases.
- EPA Air Quality System: The Federal Monitor Network Behind NAAQS Compliance and Pollution Mapping — the air-monitor network
- EPA ICIS-Air: The Federal Database Behind Clean Air Act Stationary Source Compliance — Clean Air Act compliance
- EPA Public Water Systems: The Federal Inventory of Every System That Delivers US Drinking Water — every public water system
- EPA Drinking Water Violations: The Federal Database Behind Safe Drinking Water Act Enforcement — drinking-water violations
- EPA Safe Drinking Water Act Site Visits: The Federal Record of Public Water System Inspections — water-system inspections
- EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program: The Facility-Level Emissions Database Behind US Climate Accountability — facility greenhouse-gas emissions
Energy & water (EIA, FERC, USGS)
The power grid, energy markets, and water resources.
- EIA Form 860: The Federal Database Behind Every US Power Plant and Electricity Generator — every power plant and generator
- EIA Generator Ownership: The Federal Record of Who Owns America’s Power Plants — who owns the generation fleet
- EIA Electricity Data: The Federal Dataset Behind Every Kilowatt-Hour Generated, Sold, and Priced — generation, sales, and prices
- EIA Energy Data: The Federal Database Behind Oil Prices, Natural Gas Storage, and Electricity Generation — oil, gas, and electricity series
- FERC Enforcement: The Federal Watchdog Over Energy Market Manipulation — wholesale-market enforcement
- USGS Wind and Solar Energy Data: The Federal Database Behind US Renewable Energy Infrastructure — wind and solar infrastructure
- USGS Water Resources: The National Water Information System Behind Flood Prediction, Drought Monitoring, and Aquifer Depletion Tracking — the national water system
Cross-dataset analyses
Synthesis guides that join several of the datasets above.
- The EPA Facility 360: Joining Waste, Toxic Releases, Air, and Enforcement Data — one facility across every EPA program
- The US Power Grid in Data: Joining EIA Plants, Ownership, Generation, and FERC — the grid, its owners, and its oversight
More guides at Federal data guides, or browse all writing and the full dataset catalog.