Carbon Capture Coalition Submits Statement for House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee Hearing on Pipeline Safety

The Carbon Capture Coalition submitted a statement for the record today for the House Energy & Commerce Energy, Climate & Grid Security Subcommittee hearing on legislative efforts to improve safety and expand US pipeline infrastructure. You can read the statement here.

Over the course of the past several decades, multiple international scientific climate assessments have continued to emphasize the need for carbon management to be an available tool, among a broad set of greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategies, to help meet midcentury climate targets. Congress has, in turn, heeded this call, investing in significant policy support to incentivize the widescale deployment of the full suite of these technologies, including transformative enhancements to the federal Section 45Q tax credit, the foundational policy mechanism for incentivizing carbon management projects that permanently store or reuse captured CO₂. Following these historic investments, one thing is clear —federal policy support will translate into real-world projects.

In the year since critical enhancements to the tax credit were made law, there have been 59 project announcements, with an estimated annual capture capacity of more than 28 million metric tons per year. However, for these technologies to reach their full emissions reduction and job creation and retention potential, an urgent and substantial buildout of safe and reliable CO₂ pipeline infrastructure will be needed to transport large quantities of CO₂ from industrial facilities, power plants and direct air capture facilities to points of reuse and/or permanent geologic storage. For that to occur, there must be full public and policymaker confidence in the safety of CO₂ pipelines and assurances that appropriate regulations and protocols are in place to prevent incidents of pipeline failures.

The Coalition has long-supported rigorous safety design, inspection and maintenance protocols associated with CO₂ capture, transport and storage infrastructure and recognizes the excellent historical safety record of such infrastructure—one that surpasses other climate-essential energy infrastructure—including electric transmission and distribution systems. As Congress considers the reauthorization of the nation’s pipeline safety laws under PHMSA, the Coalition urges lawmakers to include a slate of comprehensive and targeted measures, as identified in the Coalition’s 2023 Federal Policy Blueprint and subsequently included in this statement, to ensure these transport networks are designed, constructed, and maintained at rigorous standards delivering the highest levels of reliability and safety. These recommendations further support the continued buildout, management and operation of these essential energy infrastructure systems and further enable the deployment of these technologies at levels sufficient to meet decarbonization goals.

Read the Coalition’s statement here.

Watch a recording of the hearing here.

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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, reuse, and storage from industrial facilities, power plants, and ambient air. Members of the Coalition work together to advocate for the full portfolio of policies required to commercialize a domestic carbon management sector and inform policymakers as well as stakeholders on the essential role this suite of technologies must play in achieving these shared objectives.