On The Second Anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, Coalition Reflects on Next Generation Policies for Carbon Management  

The following statement may be attributed to Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition: 

“This week marks two years since the enactment of the most consequential investment in climate and energy policy in our nation’s history through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The law contains groundbreaking, widely supported mechanisms that will help to lay the foundation to deploy crucial carbon management technologies at the pace required to meet midcentury climate goals, foster domestic energy and industrial production, and provide environmental and economic benefits to affected communities.”  

“The federal Section 45Q tax credit is the cornerstone for the economywide deployment of carbon management technologies across emitting sectors. Carbon capture, removal, reuse, transport, and storage technologies will play an important and complementary role in supporting the full suite of emissions reduction, net-zero, and net-negative technologies being spurred by these investments in every state and congressional district across the country. 

“Thanks to the combination of the enhancements to the 45Q tax credit and the historic investments in the development and deployment of carbon management technologies in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there are now approximately 200 announced carbon management projects in the US alone; these projects span from early development to advanced construction. Additionally, the EPA has permitted four Class VI wells for geologic storage of carbon dioxide, with draft permits issued for another four wells to date. An additional 49 carbon storage projects, representing a total of 149 individual Class VI wells, are under review with the EPA. These numbers do not include well applications approved or under review by states that have been granted authority over Class VI permits by the EPA.  

“Taken together, these leading indicators show that we can expect to see more carbon capture and removal projects come online in a variety of sectors throughout the remainder of this decade.  

“However, the hard work of building a climate-scale carbon management industry has just begun. According to the International Energy Agency, globally, we need to capture and store approximately 1 billion metric tons of CO₂ per year by 2030 and increase this to approximately 6 billion metric tons by midcentury. Yet, if all announced projects come to fruition, global capture capacity by 2030 will be approximately 361 million metric tons per year, about one-third of the total capacity required by 2030 to put us on a path to meet net-zero emissions by midcentury.  

“We must be clear-eyed about the need for additional federal policy mechanisms to spur economywide deployment of carbon management technologies across heavy emitting sectors including steel, cement, chemicals, and power, as well as addressing historic emissions via direct air capture. The Coalition will continue to work with our diverse membership of more than 100 companies, environmental and conservation non-profits, and labor unions to realize the next generation of essential policies and looks forward to continuing to work in a broad, bipartisan manner to realize durable climate solutions in the next Congress, and beyond.” 

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Convened by the Great Plains Institute, the Carbon Capture Coalition is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, unions, conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economywide, commercial scale deployment of carbon management technologies. This includes carbon capture, removal, transport, utilization, and storage from industrial facilities, power plants, and ambient air.