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Bipartisan bill seeks $4.9 billion for CCS infrastructure
23 March 2021Karin Rives
Calling out the nation's lack of infrastructure to support a
major expansion of carbon capture and storage projects, a
bipartisan team of US lawmakers has introduced a bill authorizing
$4.9 billion over five years to help finance and kickstart
interstate pipelines and geologic "storage hubs" nationwide.
The bill, which would set up a
comprehensive federal program to boost CCS development, comes as
Congress has started to hold hearings on a broad infrastructure
package, a priority for the Biden administration.
It creates a first-ever low-interest loan program for carbon
transportation infrastructure that is modeled after similar
congressionally created programs for highway and water
infrastructure projects.
Introduced 17 March in both chambers of the US Congress, the
Storing CO2 and Lowering Emissions (SCALE) Act zeroes in on an area
of clean energy technology over which Republicans and Democrats
have found rare common ground.
Possible legislative carrot
Senators Chris Coons, Democrat-Delaware, and Bill Cassidy,
Republican-Louisiana, authored the bill in the US Senate, S. 799.
Its companion measure in the US House of Representatives, H.R.1992,
was penned by Representatives Marc Veasey, Democrat-Texas, and
David McKinley, Republican-West Virginia
Some political observers say the bill could provide
congressional Democrats with an attractive legislative carrot to
attract GOP votes for the infrastructure package, which promises to
be another round of contentious lawmaking.
Most climate and energy experts agree that scaled-up CCS is
needed to help the world hold the global temperature increase from
rising past 1.5 degrees Celsius, ideally, and to stabilize at "well
below" 2 degrees Celsius, per the 2015 Paris Agreement—a
priority for Democrats. But the evolving technology could also
allow fossil fuel-heavy industry to continue operating without
adding to climate change, which speaks to the interest of many
Republicans.
Industry players have also signaled an interest in building out
CCS infrastructure, most recently when BlackRock and Valero
announced plans 16 March to build a 1,200-mile pipeline in the
Midwest to carry carbon captured at Valero and other biofuel plants
to a storage site in southern Illinois.
Buttigieg brings message to Congress
Infrastructure investments have typically been bipartisan, and
while capturing and managing emissions from industrial plants is a
new area, it's a fresh opportunity to bring together members of
Congress, Brad Crabtree, president of the Carbon Capture Coalition,
said in an interview 21 March.
The first test of that will come Thursday when Transportation
Secretary Pete Buttigieg testifies before the House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee about the administration's plans for
the nation's aging roads, bridges and public transit systems.
The CCS bill also has the backing of a broad coalition of labor
groups, environmental advocates, think tanks and industry that
include the Industrial Union Council AFL-CIO, the Bipartisan Policy
Center, The Nature Conservancy and Occidental.
"Given that there is so much support for this—it's truly
bipartisan and it really spans the geography, you have members from
energy-producing states and well as from coastal states—I think
that is very promising in terms of pulling together a broader set
of members around [infrastructure] priorities," Crabtree said.
The unusual line-up of sponsors for the SCALE Act includes
Democratic and Republican lawmakers who rarely agree on energy and
environmental legislation.
In the Senate, the cosponsors are Democratic Sens. Tina Smith
(Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Tammy Duckworth
(Ill.)—all strong supporters of CO2 cuts—along with the
more middle-of-the road Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Joe Manchin (W.Va.) The
four GOP cosponsors are Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Mike
Braun (Ind.), John Hoeven (N.D.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).
In the House, Reps. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Pete Stauber
(R-Minn.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) are
supporting the legislation thus far.
Manchin, a key swing vote in the Senate, said the legislation
would help accelerate the development of pipeline and storage
infrastructure critical to the expansion of carbon sequestration
and end-use markets. Such measures will support "thousands of clean
energy, infrastructure and manufacturing jobs across the country,
including in traditional energy producing communities like those in
West Virginia," he added in a statement.
Tax dollars to leverage private investments
The SCALE Act would establish a new finance program for carbon
transport infrastructure modeled after existing federal programs
seeking to leverage private sector investments in highway and water
infrastructure projects. In addition to low interest loans for
carbon transport infrastructure projects, it would provide federal
grants for front-end engineering and new carbon capture proposals
that promise growth.
To build out storage sites, the legislation would expand the
Department of Energy's CarbonSAFE program, which provides
public-private cost-sharing for those projects, giving "priority to
larger, commercial saline geologic storage projects that will serve
as hubs for storing CO2 from multiple carbon capture facilities,"
according to a press release Coons issued last week.
It would also boost funding for the Environmental Protection
Agency's permitting program for Class VI injection wells used to
sequester CO2 in geologic rock formations, and provide grants for
states that want to set up their own permitting programs. And to
encourage commercial use of captured carbon for new products uses,
the bill also authorizes new grants for states and local
governments.
Bipartisan governors from fossil states
cheer
The political appeal of the SCALE bill has drawn the support of
Republican and Democratic governors from four states with large
oil, natural gas and coal operations who weighed in with a 19 March letter urging Congress
to include this legislation in its broader infrastructure
package.
"The expansion of an interconnected [carbon dioxide] transport
system will enable the transport of large volumes of CO2 from our
nation's industrial facilities, power plants, and future
large-scale direct air capture facilities to suitable saline
geologic formations where it can be safely and permanently stored,"
said Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D), Louisiana Gov. John Bel
Edwards (D), Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) and Wyoming Gov. Mark
Gordon (R). "The availability of this transport and storage network
is urgently needed to accelerate the commercial deployment of
carbon capture technologies to meet mid-century climate goals."