Statement of Eileen Claussen
President
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

May 5, 2014

We applaud Sen. Jay Rockefeller for introducing legislation to advance carbon capture and storage (CCS). The Expanding Carbon Capture Through Enhanced Oil Recovery Act of 2014 would reform and expand an existing tax credit to encourage the use of carbon dioxide captured from power plants and industrial facilities in enhancing production from existing oil fields.

Carbon capture and storage is a critical technology to cut carbon emissions while coal and natural gas remain part of our energy mix. Providing incentives to capture CO2 for use in enhanced oil recovery will help bring more commercial-scale projects on line, which will help advance carbon capture technology and lower costs.

The incentive will also generate net federal revenue from domestic oil production while at the same time safely storing more than 4 billion tons of man-made carbon dioxide.

The bill reflects recommendations from the National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI), a broad and unusual coalition of industry executives, environmental groups, labor representatives, and state officials convened by C2ES and the Great Plains Institute.

A separate bill, the Deployment of Carbon Capture and Sequestration Act of 2014, would introduce a variety of additional financial incentives to advance CCS and continue ongoing Energy Department research and development of this vital technology.

Sen. Rockefeller has been a leading proponent of carbon capture and storage, introducing legislation in 2010 that was one of the early comprehensive proposals for advancing CCS in power generation.

We look forward to working with the Sen. Rockefeller and others to see this bill enacted.
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For more information, see the NEORI website and C2ES NEORI initiative page.

Contact Laura Rehrmann, 703-516-4146, press@c2es.org