(Washington, DC) – Today, Great Plains Institute joined more than 160 companies, labor unions, conservation and environmental groups, and other organizations from around the nation in a letter to Congressional leaders urging the inclusion of a comprehensive suite of bipartisan carbon management policies in any larger legislative vehicle this Congress.
The letter outlines a portfolio of complementary policy priorities to expand and accelerate carbon capture deployment to reduce emissions, create and retain highly-skilled jobs that pay family-sustaining wages and spur investment in domestic energy, industry and manufacturing.
This suite of policies, all of which have been introduced in strongly supported, broadly bipartisan legislation, include:
- providing a direct pay option for the federal Section 45Q tax credit;
- extending the commence construction window for the 45Q credit;
- enhancing 45Q credit values for industrial and power plant carbon capture and direct air capture;
- eliminating annual carbon capture thresholds that deter innovation;
- financing the buildout of regional CO2 transport and storage networks; and
- ensuring robust funding for commercial scale carbon capture pilot projects and demonstration programs.
“This suite of bipartisan policies should give hope to everyone concerned about the future we are leaving our children and grandchildren. It is absolutely imperative that we position the U.S. to lead the world’s new low-carbon economy,” said Rolf Nordstrom, president and CEO of Great Plains Institute. “These policies would create not only the infrastructure to reduce emissions, but the high-skilled, high-paying jobs to make that happen. To be blunt, if we don’t cut carbon emissions in half by the end of the decade, we can look forward to more record heat, record drought, uncontrolled wildfires and other extremes.”
Expanded and accelerated adoption of carbon management technologies is not only essential to meeting our climate goals, but critical to continued American technology leadership and to the future of domestic energy, industrial and manufacturing sectors and the high-wage jobs and communities that depend on them. In fact, recent analyses by the Rhodium Group show that deployment of carbon capture and direct air capture projects and associated CO2 transport infrastructure has the potential to generate tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs paying above average wages.
The full letter can be viewed online here.
This blog was originally published by Great Plains Institute.