(1) Ecology may assign an emissions level to any annual GHG report that:

(a) Failed to submit a complete annual GHG report by the report submission due date, specified in WAC 173-441-050(2);

(b) Failed to meet the third-party verification requirements in WAC 173-441-085;

(c) Has an adverse verification statement; or

(d) Ecology determines the absolute value of any discrepancy, omission, or misreporting, or aggregation of the three, is at least five percent of total reported covered emissions (metric tons of CO2e). This standard also separately applies to any covered product data in the annual GHG report.

(i) "Discrepancies" means any differences between the reported covered emissions or covered product data and ecology's review of covered emissions or covered product data for a data source or product data.

(ii) "Omissions" means any covered emissions or covered product data ecology concludes must be part of the annual GHG report, but were not included by the reporting entity in the annual GHG report.

(iii) "Misreporting" means duplicate, incomplete or other covered emissions ecology concludes should, or should not, be part of the annual GHG report or duplicate or other product data ecology concludes should not be part of the annual GHG report.

(iv) "Total reported covered emissions or covered product data" means the total annual reporting entity covered emissions or total reported covered product data for which ecology is conducting an assessment.

(2) The assigned emissions level must be used when determining compliance with chapter 173-442 WAC.

(3) Ecology must use conservative assumptions when setting the assigned emissions level to avoid underestimating emissions in a compliance year or overestimating emissions in a baseline year.

(a) Within five working days of a written request by ecology, the third-party verifier (if applicable) must provide any available verification services information or correspondence related to the emissions data.

(b) Within five working days of a written request by ecology, the owner or operator of a facility must provide the data that is required to calculate GHG emissions for the facility according to the requirements of this chapter, the preliminary or final detailed verification report prepared by the third-party verifier (if applicable), and other information requested by ecology, including the operating days and hours of the facility during the data year. The owner or operator must also make available personnel who can assist ecology's determination of an assigned emissions level for the data year.

(4) Ecology may adjust the assigned emissions level if the owner or operator is able to obtain a positive verification statement for the annual GHG report at a later date.