Carbon Capture Coalition Hosts Online Briefing to Highlight Release of 2025 Federal Policy Blueprint 

On February 27, the Carbon Capture Coalition hosted a media briefing on the Coalition’s new 2025 Federal Policy Blueprint, which outlines a roadmap of essential, common-sense policy, regulatory, and implementation recommendations for Congress and the new administration to support the rapid, responsible scale up of carbon management technologies.   

The Blueprint reflects the consensus of the Coalition’s more than 100 members, spanning companies, labor unions, and conservation and environmental organizations that will guide Coalition efforts and engagement over the next two years.   

Speakers at the media briefing, which included a mix of Coalition member companies and non-profits as well as Coalition staff, expressed confidence in carbon management technologies and identified where the current federal policy framework is still insufficient to reach nationwide deployment of the full suite of carbon management technologies, which includes, capture at power and industrial facilities, carbon removal from the atmosphere, and associated transport and storage infrastructure.  

The panel included Caleb Stephenson, the Executive Vice President of Commercial Operations at Calpine; Jack Thirolf, Head of Energy Policy for Net Power; Xan Fishman, Senior Managing Director of Energy at the Bipartisan Policy Center; and Savvy Bowman, Senior Program Manager for Carbon Management at ClearPath.  

Representatives from project developers Calpine and Net Power expressed confidence in the technology and its ability to scale in the near-term. Thirolf noted, “There’s a lot to be optimistic about. [NET Power] is a technology company; things that I worry about are not technology. We have proven carbon capture can work; we need to deploy at scale.” 

Stevenson spoke positively about projects already in the development pipeline, asserting, “I think we’re going to see significant deployment this decade. One of [Calpine’s] two demonstration award projects that we’re working on with the Department of Energy, we’re targeting a 2028 COD. That will be close to two million tons per year of capture, and, to me, that’s pretty significant already.”  

Speakers also discussed the necessary federal policy framework that is  
essential to move project development forward, with Fishman providing comments on the importance of durable policy drivers.  
“Policy is prologue, and companies are going to respond to the policies that are in place, and they’re going to respond in the best way for America if there’s a degree of certainty that those policies are durable… which are almost always bipartisan in nature.”  

Speakers touched on the full portfolio of recommendations detailed in the 2025 Policy Blueprint, ranging from ensuring investment certainty through targeted enhancements to the foundational 45Q tax credit to providing the necessary regulatory framework for transport and storage, building market demand for carbon management technologies, and continuing to invest in their development and deployment.  

On timeframes to deploy these technologies and permitting policies, Bowman noted, “At ClearPath, we’ve spent time thinking creatively on the paths forward to get carbon management projects continuously moving, and there’s a couple of unique ways we can address this. One is granting states more primacy … [and] increased support from the Department of Energy to provide more technical assistance to EPA’s Class VI program will help streamline those reviews.” 

Fishman pointed to the importance of supportive policies for carbon management technologies like effective permitting reform, commenting, “We need a logical, efficient system in a predictable, reasonable amount of time… if your process takes too long, things actually just get worse. You don’t get [any of] the … benefits from building your new infrastructure,” including energy affordability, reliability, and emissions reductions.   

You can view our release event recording here. To read the Carbon Capture Coalition’s 2025 Federal Policy Blueprint, click here.  

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The Carbon Capture Coalition (the Coalition) is a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 companies, labor unions, and conservation and environmental policy organizations. Coalition members work together to lay the groundwork for the necessary portfolio of federal policies to enable nationwide, commercial-scale deployment of carbon management technologies.