The Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act involves billions of dollars being allocated across the carbon removal ecosystem. It just passed the US House of Representatives, and President Trump has stated his intent to veto it if it reaches his desk, but right now the focus is on its way through the Senate. Our panelist this week is Dr. Shuchi Talati, senior policy advisor at Carbon180. You can also read her recap of the bill here.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the lead strategist at the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Dr. Shuchi Taladi, Senior Policy Advisor at Carbon180. Hi Shuchi.
Shuchi Talati: Hi Ross.
Ross Kenyon: Thanks for being here. It is your first time on. You’re joining the illustrious ranks of your Carbon180 peers. So thank you.
Shuchi Talati: Thank you so much for having me.
Ross Kenyon: It’s my pleasure. I invited you on because I read your Medium post, which was an excellent summary of what is happening with the Clean Economy, Jobs and Innovation Act.
Shuchi Talati: Yeah, it’s a really big deal. You know, we haven’t really had a lot of funding for carbon removal in the past. And so the fact that this bill is offering, you know, dedicated funds of over a billion dollars to carbon removal alone over the next five years is just really unprecedented.
Ross Kenyon: And I understand that it just passed the House and there is a parallel Senate version being worked on right now, too.
Shuchi Talati: Yeah, so there is a Senate version. The bill language is not the same, but I’m hopeful that the Senate bill will be brought to the floor and voted upon positively. And if that happens, the House and Senate will go to conference to resolve the differences between the two.
Ross Kenyon: Mm-hmm. And then you told me ahead of time that Trump has explicitly said that he would veto if something like this were to come to his desk.
Shuchi Talati: That’s what he said. I mean, that could change as we know with this administration. So I hope it does. But I am a bit worried.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, so we’re going to ignore that part of it for now. And let’s just dig into what is actually inside of here that gets you excited.
Shuchi Talati: Yeah, so let’s talk about the carbon removal section in the bill. So there are a few different parts. There’s an air capture prize, which offers some prize money for kind of early R&D around direct air capture. And really interestingly, there’s also a commercial direct air capture prize. And so this particular program offers funds per ton removed. And so it offers $180 per ton. And so if you know about 45Q, That is a tax credit that offers $50 a ton for direct air capture if it’s going to storage. But this offers $180 per ton going to saline storage.
And that’s just really great incentive to really spur geologic storage at scale. There’s another portion of the bill that creates direct air capture test centers to help advance research development, deployment, and demonstration. That would be housed at different higher education institutions. And these would help develop front end engineering design and also offer kind of public records of performance and be these kinds of hubs for research, which is really exciting. I just want to talk about a couple other provisions in the bill that aren’t directly related to carbon removal but are incredibly important.
So another section is dedicated to carbon storage. And so this part of the bill actually dedicates $3 billion to helping RD&D for storage over the next five years. And so that would, you know, Create opportunities for funding to help monitoring and verification for storage, which we really need for storage at scale. We also need modeling to help predict and verify carbon dioxide containment. It would also offer funds to help research around environmental and safety impacts of storage and also help support a regulatory framework. We know how difficult Class six well permits are right now to obtain.
And so figuring out how that should look, what we need to change, and how we need to create new structures for this rapidly changing space. And finally, there’s a carbon utilization section. This particular section offers $150 million for carbon utilization over the next five years. And also ask the national academies to look into the technical feasibility of different types of carbon utilization, look into a national pipeline and storage infrastructure and what that would look like, and also create a research agenda for carbon utilization, which I think given how nascent this field is and how kind of How hard it is to get funding in the space I think would be really helpful.
Ross Kenyon: How would you rate this in terms of how big it is relative to other things that have affected carbon removal, at least on the legislative side?
Shuchi Talati: I would say it’s huge. If this were to pass and if this were actually to be realized, this would be kind of the biggest thing to happen in the carbon removal space on the policy side. We really haven’t seen this kind of dedicated Policy focus on carbon removal. And I really hope that this kind of funding and oversight and transparency and regulatory framework really starts becoming a big focus of the policy community.
Ross Kenyon: Why do congressmen and women, why are they so, I don’t know, surprisingly supportive of carbon removal? I mean, the House passed it. I guess that’s a strange way to phrase it. It’s just we were talking before the show started about how much the space has changed even over the course of a few years, and now you have support in Congress. It’s shocking to me, and it’s exciting. I guess what is happening over there? Is it just people like Carbon 180 spreading the word, or are there staffers in various congressional offices pushing this?
How is it happening?
Shuchi Talati: Yeah, I think congressional education is definitely really important, starting to learn about this space. I think we’ve seen a lot of industry movement over the last few years with demonstration plants in the United States and in Europe. I think also kind of really big reports like the IPCC and the National Academies talking about the need for carbon removal to meet net zero goals and to keep temperatures under 1. 5. And how important a comprehensive research agenda is, has also been really critical in getting people on board to creating really expansive policy in this space.
It does create really interesting coalitions. And I think that’s because carbon removal offers the opportunity to create a lot of jobs. It also, at the same time, is an opportunity to really create You know, new ways and pathways to, you know, get to net zero. And so I think those kinds of coalitions are going to be really important moving forward. I think it is challenging, you know, with the fossil fuel industry and, you know, environmental groups. And I think figuring out how moving forward the fossil fuel and oil and gas industry is going to play a role in this space.
And so I think that will be something to keep an eye on moving forward.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think that they see an opportunity here with the carbon removal space? We tend to be a bit optimistic about their existing participation and also future participation, though we know that others do not see it the same way and see that potentially as more of a threat. Where do you sit on that?
Shuchi Talati: I think it’s really difficult because I do think they see it as an opportunity. And right now we do need to have a lot more funding in this space. But I think that’s why we need more public funding. I think having government funding and creating measures where we have more transparency and oversight as we grow this space is really critical. And I think having fossil fuel industry help is And I think, you know, I acknowledge that we definitely need that kind of expertise. But my hope is that we can move to a more government focused program.
Ross Kenyon: Do you have a sense of the timeline?
Shuchi Talati: Basically, the bill needs to get for time and so they can actually vote on it. So I’m hopeful that’s going to happen soon. And once that happens, you know, these bills will go to conference for the House and Senate to resolve those differences. How long that could take, I’m not sure. And obviously the election is going to play a really big role in how these timelines might move. And so I’m hesitant to kind of give any sort of exact numbers because everything is just very volatile.
Ross Kenyon: Got it. That makes sense. Was there anything else happening in the world of policy with regard to carbon removal that our audience should be aware of right now?
Shuchi Talati: I think those are kind of the main things right now. You know, we did see the CREATE Act introduced in the Senate, which was a really exciting bill around carbon removal and kind of creating structures in the executive branch to work in this space. So I’m excited to see, you know, a House version of that bill get introduced. And hopefully that’s something that, you know, we can work on this Congress and next. So definitely keep an eye out for that.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, great. Well, in the show notes, there is the piece you wrote on Medium summing up the Clean Economy, Jobs, and Innovation Act. I found it very helpful. Of course, the Carbon 180 newsletter is a frequent source of quality information about carbon removal policy. You’re on Twitter, too?
Shuchi Talati: I am on Twitter, yes.
Ross Kenyon: Yes, I will link to you there. Shuchi, thanks for being on the show.
Shuchi Talati: Thanks so much for having me, and I hope this bill gets passed on the Senate side.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’m curious to see. The scale of this thing certainly seems at least an order of magnitude bigger than previous attempts. I think it would certainly be a big deal for the industry were it to pass.
Shuchi Talati: Definitely.
Ross Kenyon: Cool. Well, thanks so much for listening. If you like the show, if you could please do me a small favor and write us a review and give us a five-star rating on iTunes or Apple Podcasts, same thing. But if you just open up your iPhone, open up the podcast app and write that for us, that makes a big difference in helping to get this content out to more people. You’re listening to the show. You care about carbon removal. We want other people to know about what’s happening in carbon removal. So please do what you can for that.
And thanks so much for listening.
