Erin Burns is the Director of Policy and Ugbaad Kosar is the Senior Policy Advisor at Carbon180, a climate-focused NGO that partners with policymakers, scientists and businesses to advance solutions that transform carbon from a liability to an asset. On this episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, Erin and Ugbaad join Ross to discuss the policy proposals involving carbon removal currently making their way through Congress.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: [Nori promotion cut from the transcript. It’s still in the audio, but it no longer applies.]
Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Erin Burns, Director of Policy at Carbon 180, and Ugbaad Kosar, Senior Policy Advisor at Carbon 180 as well.
Thank you both so much for being here.
Ugbaad Kosar: Thanks for having us. We’re excited.
Ross Kenyon: Indeed, it’s always a pleasure to have you both back or I guess Aaron has been on a couple times here. But thanks for being on for your first time. I like getting carbon 180 updates on what is happening in Congress since I need someone to decipher what is happening in there for me because it is a lot to track and it is complicated. So I’m happy to have hardcore policy nerds here to assist me.
Erin Burns: Yeah, happy to be here. That’s what we’re here for.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, and I mean that, of course, in the kindest way possible. It’s a necessary thing to do.
Ugbaad Kosar: Oh, we were flattered.
Ross Kenyon: You’re flattered. Okay, good, good. What exactly is happening in Congress? There are a whole bunch of things that we’ve been tracking, and I know that you are working on and trying to figure out exactly where carbon removal fits into all of these bills. I saw there is A thing called the Clean Future Act, which had a press release, which I was reviewing. That seems like there’s some good stuff in there. I also wanted to get some updates from you about the Use It Act, which you’ve been on before, Aaron, to tell people about.
There’s also stuff coming out of a Republican climate package with a 45Q extension. There’s something called the Sea Fuel Act. There’s a lot of stuff happening in Congress. Maybe we could try to go through these one by one. You can both break them down for me.
Erin Burns: Yeah, we’d be happy to. There is. And I think what you said is really important. There’s a lot happening in Congress, especially in carbon removal right now. And I think, you know, in the past, thinking back to our work a couple of years ago or three, four or five years ago when carbon 180 started and how much education needed to be done. At the time, I was actually a Senate staffer and met Noah Deicher, founder, one of our co-founders. And I worked a lot on carbon capture and he very patiently explained this whole carbon removal thing to me.
And we ended up writing a piece of legislation together. But the difference between those kinds of conversations that we had that early on and the conversations we’re having now on the Hill are incredibly different because staff now not only know what carbon removal is, but they’re super excited about it. And I think you can see that reflected in a lot of what we see coming out of the Hill. So you mentioned the Clean Tea Tract, which we’re super excited about. So this is a bill that the House Energy and Commerce Committee put out several weeks ago.
And there are a couple of reasons that this bill overall is really important. One is it’s a really big climate bill and it’s the biggest climate bill that we’ve seen from the committee since the cap and trade bill. And this is a pretty comprehensive look at decarbonizing, in particular, the electricity sector. And I’ll say, you know, Carbon 180 works on all forms of carbon removal, natural and tech. This is going to be a lot more focused on tech, but that’s not because the committee’s been very clear. That’s not because they don’t care about decarbonizing the ag sector.
It’s really because that’s their kind of committee’s jurisdiction. That’s what they have. You know, purview over. So this is really focused on, you know, electricity, industrial sector, those kinds of pieces. And I’ll head over to Agwara to talk a little bit more about the specific. There is a lot on carbon removal in here so she can talk a little bit more about the specific.
Ugbaad Kosar: Yeah, so the Clean Future Act is a bit of a mix of old and new policies that were put together, as well as some new programs and some older ones with new funding levels. A few of the new ideas that were introduced in this act, the federal agencies are mandated to create a national climate goal plan. So every agency needs to set out their pathway forward to 100% clean economy, which is really exciting. There’s a National Climate Bank. It’s actually a nonprofit venture, but it’s legible for about $10 billion within the first year and $5 billion annually after that.
And what that money is going to do is really help with things like grid modernization, funding renewables, and going towards communities that are directly impacted by climate change. Another new idea that was brought forward is state-led climate plans. So a lot of the responsibility is going to be delegated to states. To develop their mechanisms for ways that they’re going to be either slashing their greenhouse gas emissions or how they’re going to move forward with carbon removal policies and ideas. There’s also a few older programs with updates. I mean, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the EPA are being pushed to go a lot further with some of their existing programming.
But when it comes to carbon removal, what’s exciting is that it’s incorporated pretty much throughout the entire bill, but it’s most notably seen in the industry sector. And the legislation, at least what I found, is that it really recognizes that negative emissions plays a central role in reaching this 100 percent clean economy idea. And so a few of the highlights. The first is there is a new position that’s actually being created, an assistant secretary. And a lot of their responsibility is going to be how to integrate carbon removal within the Department of Energy’s research efforts.
So they’re responsible for the research, the development, the demonstration and the deployment of a lot of and coming carbon removal technology. There is a new direct air capture prize program that was brought forward. And what this is going to do is help plants that are able to remove at least 10,000 metric tonnes of CO2 annually. They’re eligible for up to one hundred and eighty dollars per tonne of CO2 that they’re able to remove. Another thing that is included is the carbon capture utilization technology commercialization program. A bit of a mouthful, but essentially this is just funding that’s going to really help with commercial demonstrations for carbon capture.
There’s a lot of money being put into this. It’s ranging from $100 million to upwards of $1. 5 billion of funding that’s going to be available between the next five to 10 years. And that’s going to really help with scaling up a lot of the carbon capture technology and the use of carbon in markets. There’s a few more. The carbon removal is also being introduced in some of these state-led strategies that are coming forward. So states are being really pushed to include carbon removal pathways as part of their climate plans.
And lastly, there’s the Federal Buy Clean Program. So this I found to be particularly exciting because it’s really promoting the use of low carbon construction materials, especially with federally funded construction programs or projects. And I think that this will really help with the carbon tech industry because a lot of the captured carbon can be used for building material substitutions. And I think that would fit really well with this piece. Those are just a few of the things that are going on. And a lot of that came out of really just the industry sector.
But the act itself spans from the power sector. It looks at buildings and efficiencies and looking at building codes and retrofitting. There’s a really large section dedicated towards environmental justice. So really empowering community voices and frontline communities and public health concerns. And transportation as well, of course. So improving the vehicle performance standards and pushing for cleaner fuels. So all of that is wrapped up into this 600 pages of draft text. But it seems to be working quite well together, I think.
Ross Kenyon: No easy feat to sum up 600 pages.
Ugbaad Kosar: I tried.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think you did a good job. There is a lot there that is worth looking into further. I’ll put some resources in the show notes if you’re listening and you want to learn more about the Clean Future Act. And Aaron, as I like to do when you’re on here too, either of you can help me with this. I feel like such a civics newbie whenever we chat. What exactly is the relationship between the Clean Future Act and other, maybe they’re not competing, but they’re fellow traveler bills? What’s the status of some of the bills that fall under the Green New Deal versus the Clean Future Act?
Are some of them mutually exclusive or redundant? Are they intended to interact in some way? How exactly does this all fit together?
Erin Burns: Yeah, so I think it’s a great question. So as you know, there are hundreds and thousands of bills introduced every year. And I think one of the important things that we’re seeing with things like the Green New Deal and the Clean Future Act is we’re seeing really ambitious climate policy that’s as comprehensive as possible. And again, I caveated that energy and commerce has jurisdiction over certain pieces of this. And so that’s what they’ve really focused on. But I think what we’ve seen historically is we’ve seen bills that just target the electricity sector, one piece of this.
Target, you know, how do we improve DOE? And that’s great. And, you know, that’s frankly how a lot of bills are going to pass. But what we’re seeing with the Green New Deal and the Clean Future Act is people starting to put together not just like ambitious climate plans, but ambitious climate plans with a lot of legislative detail. And so, as I mentioned, these are pulling from you’ll see things like a direct air capture price. That’s something that you’ve seen. And a couple of bills out there like the Use It Act and the Fossil Energy R&D Act and the Effect Act.
You’ll see, you know, more money for DOE, which you see at other places. So they are taking from some of these bills and ideas that have been out there. And they’re looking at things like clean energy standards. And there’s a bicameral bill from Senator Tina Smith and Congressman Ben Ray Lujan out there that looks at setting a federal clean energy standard and includes a pathway for direct air capture. And so you’ll see a lot of these pieces of these bills put in there, but I think these are all, I don’t think we see them as competing.
I think what we care about is one, that we see really comprehensive climate legislation, and two, that we see carbon removal really incorporated throughout these bills, which we have seen with the Clean Future Act, we have seen with the Green New Deal, and we’re seeing more and more of those individual bills pop up.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. That is good to know. I still have a difficulty totally wrapping my head around the totality of what is happening there.
Erin Burns: And honestly, it’s, you know, creating bills and introducing bills and then moving them through Congress. It’s messy. And it’s not a particularly linear process. There’s the kind of civics 101 or the internal government version of this where you get a bill. Committee has a hearing. They vote on the bill, you know, full Senate or full House votes on the bill. It passes, goes over to do the same process through, you know, whichever House of Congress that hasn’t gone through yet. But frankly, that’s not often how legislation gets passed and it’s a much messier process.
So I think what’s important is that, you know, we don’t expect the Clean Future Act to be enacted this year. That’s not how big, really big bills work. Frankly, that’s not how a lot of smaller bills work. They take time. But what we are excited about is that there’s a proposal out there. It has legislative text. What you’re going to see from the committee is them listening to a lot of feedback from members, from organizations, from constituents who are going to come in and say, you know, I have questions about this, or I think you can add this, or what if we did this differently?
And so as you go through that process, we’re going to get more and more, you know, towards some piece of legislation or pieces more likely of legislation where they are going to have that chance to go through the process. They’re going to get markups. They’re going to have hearings. And then hopefully eventually we’re going to get some comprehensive climate legislation enacted in the U. S. And so this is. A big step in that process, but it’s definitely an early step and it’s never a very linear or clean process. It’s definitely very complicated and messy.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. Thanks for explaining that. I’m grateful. And then next, I didn’t mention this in the intro. I’m told it’s called Appropes.
Erin Burns: That’s what we DC folks call it, the appropriations process.
Ross Kenyon: Mm-hmm. I feel like draining the swamp, just saying it. But yeah, okay, appropriations. There’s stuff in there for carbon removal, so I hear.
Erin Burns: Yeah, so when we talk about bills, we kind of think of them in two buckets. We think of authorization bills and appropriation bills. Authorization bills are bills that change programs, create new programs, update existing ones, that sort of thing. And so we talk about the Clean Future Act. That’s what we’re talking about. You know, ask states to do something or change things at the Department of Energy. But what happens every year is that the government passes appropriations bills, which are bills that fund all of those programs. And we are, so at the end of last year, they funded the government for fiscal year 2020.
And one of the most important things we saw in that Was the first ever dedicated carbon removal funding at the Department of Energy. So before these bills were enacted at the end of last year, we had seen about 11 and a half million dollars ever cumulatively for direct air capture at the Department of Energy. So really a minuscule amount of money. At the end of last year, though, those bills included 60 million dollars for carbon removal more broadly, negative emissions technologies at the Department of Energy. And so that was a huge leap and really in line with a lot of the recommendations we saw in the National Academy study.
And so what we’re doing this year is we’re starting the whole process over again for fiscal year 2021. And not to get too into the weeds, but as part of the appropriations process, the committees that write these appropriations, these funding bills, they solicit input from outside organizations, from other members, from constituents, and you have a chance to get your kind of opinions into the process. And so what we’re doing now is spending a lot of time talking to members about how great it is that we got that $60 million for negative emissions technologies.
And how we might increase it some this year and how the Department of Energy might use that funding for fiscal year 2021. And so I think that what’s really significant about all of this is we’re getting real amounts of money into the Department of Energy for Negative Emissions Technologies. And once you get some of that money, once you kind of get that foothold, it’s much easier to go and ask Congress for an increase in that funding, to grow that funding, as we know from the National Academy’s report and the Energy Futures Initiative report in other places.
We’re going to need 60 million is a great start. We’re going to need a lot more. And so now we’re at the stage where we’ve got that foothold. We got that 60 million. And now we’re spending this year. We’ll do this for the foreseeable future, I’m sure. But we’re spending the next couple of months talking to Congress about how much more money could be used for negative emissions technologies and how might you use them?
Ross Kenyon: Cool. That is interesting to hear. And I imagine at the DOE, these are for demonstration projects or for basic research, both, something I’m not even thinking about?
Erin Burns: Yeah, they actually have a lot of flexibility. So it’s interesting because right now, the way the Department of Energy is structured, they don’t have a dedicated carbon removal program or direct air capture program. They have a carbon capture program that’s historically been focused on, honestly, frankly, on coal power plants. But last year, we also saw funding for natural gas and industrial power plants. And they have a carbon storage program and that carbon storage program works on carbon use as well. But this is really a new kind of mandate for the Department of Energy.
So it’ll be really interesting to see how they do spend that money. And one of the things, you know, you talked a little bit at the beginning of this about kind of everything going on. And there is a lot going on. But in addition to the funding piece of this, there are efforts, there are bills that are those kinds of authorization bills that are looking to establish the first ever carbon removal program with the Department of Energy. So a little bit maybe backwards from what folks would expect as far as getting funding done.
For work that you don’t have a program for, but we think the Department of Energy will be able to handle it well. We know that the folks who are working at the Department of Energy and at the National Labs on carbon capture have been thinking about direct air capture and other negative emissions technologies for quite a while. So we’re excited to see how they might fund it. But it could be, yeah, everything from basic R&D at the National Labs to, you know, demonstration support for some direct air capture projects.
Ross Kenyon: Great. That’s all excellent to know. And then one of the other things that we’ve spoken about a little bit is that there is a 45Q extension and there’s a Republican climate package, which I haven’t heard very much about. I’m wondering if you could explain a little bit about what’s happening there.
Erin Burns: Sure. So this was something that we saw actually just a little bit earlier this month. There was a larger effort for the House Republicans to put out an environmental plan, a big climate kind of environmental piece. And one of the things we saw in there was from Congressman Schweiker from Arizona has an extension for the direct air capture portion of 45Q and an increase in the value for it. So, again, this is the tax credit where for direct air capture or point source carbon capture, you get $50 per tonne if you capture it and put it in the saline storage, $35 per tonne if it’s used for something.
And then, you know, through that, you stored it. And so what we see in this bill is an increase in those values again, and it actually makes the tax credit permanent. So really interesting to see this. Schweikert has been somebody who is relatively new to direct air capture, but been a huge supporter, is a co-sponsor of several other bills. And his district is adjacent to Arizona State University, where, of course, Klaus Lachner and other researchers have been leaders on direct air capture for As long as it’s really been a thing.
So I think Congressman Schweitzer’s office is really seeing the opportunity in their state and other states for innovation and, you know, kind of climate leadership through technologies like direct air capture. So I think that’s a lot of his not to speak for him or his office, but I think that really helped motivate his interest in direct air capture. And again, we’re excited to see more leadership come from members in the House on direct air capture.
Ross Kenyon: Indeed, if there’s any staffer out there in the Schweikert office listening, we see you. We see what’s going on over there. There’s some interesting things. In particular, the Sea Fuel Act, too, which he’s involved in. I saw someone sent me this article about military vessels capturing ambient CO2 either from the ocean or from the air and turning it into fuel. And there being a bill to support the research of that or some such. Is that broadly correct?
Erin Burns: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s something else. Around the same time that we got that funding at the end of last year, we saw that there was something called the Sea Fuel Act, which is an acronym that I don’t remember exactly what it stands for, but something very long.
Ross Kenyon: They always do. I don’t know why they always try to do this with bills. It’s like a marketing thing.
Erin Burns: Listen, the amount of time I spent when I was in the Senate with our comp team being like, what acronym can we make this stand for? That makes sense. So shout out to all those press assistants on the Hill who spend an inordinate amount of time working on the acronyms. But the important part of the CPO Act is that it recognizes that what we need with carbon removal is really not just money at DOE or not just money at USDA, but carbon removal needs to be integrated into everything we do the federal level.
This needs to be a multi-agency approach. And so this is a bill that was enacted as part of something called the National Defense Authorization Act, which is not important to get into what that is, but it was passed last year as part of that package. And it includes funding for direct air and direct ocean capture. And exactly what you said, Ross, that we’re seeing more interest from the military in things like direct air or ocean capture to fuels. And in fact, Opus 12, one of the carbon utilization companies, got a contract with the Air Force, I believe, to do exactly that, that CO2 to fuels work on aircraft carriers.
So in addition to the obvious climate benefits, there’s also some potential military readiness benefits. And in the appropriations bills at the end of last year, we actually, I mentioned the $60 million at the Department of Energy for negative emission technologies, but there was also $8 million as part of the Sea Fuel Act for direct air and ocean capture at the Department of Defense.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. Yeah, there’s so much going on. I didn’t know that about Opus 12, too. Congratulations if you’re out there listening. We know some people over there. Yeah. That’s great. And then we did a show a while back about the Use It Act. And you have mentioned that there are some updates there. If you could fill our audience in.
Erin Burns: Yeah, absolutely. So this is a bill that kind of has two broad sections. This is a bill that talks a little bit about the R&D part, but also looks at infrastructure as well. And it has gone through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And we saw just a couple of weeks ago, we had a hearing in the House for the first time. So this has been really exciting. It was introduced last Congress, reintroduced this Congress. And so we have a really big hearing on this. And a lot of great questions raised, I think, really digging into the details on both R&D and infrastructure questions.
So this is something else to keep an eye on. And I think Already we’ve seen pieces of this bill get plucked into, you know, the Director of Capture Prize, for example, is something that we see. We saw maybe first in the Use It Act, but we see reflected in the Clean Future Act. We see reflected in a couple of the bills that established programs for carbon removal of the Department of Energy. So this bill, even as it’s kind of slowly made its way through the process on the health side and that we’ve already seen, it’s kind of influenced and driving other pieces of legislation as well.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. Yes, that is good to know. Cool. Well, I will keep following its progress. But is there anything that we didn’t talk about here that you think we should or are there any things that are a bit more tentative that you’re looking forward to?
Ugbaad Kosar: Um, yeah, I mean, I’m looking forward to a lot of the carbon removal that’s going to be on the land side. I think that’s something that we’re starting to explore with agriculture, with forestry, with oceans. And I think that moving forward, I’m really looking forward to seeing what bills get introduced and what sort of work we’re going to be able to support. But on the tech side, I think Aaron’s got it.
Erin Burns: Yeah, I just second that. I think we’re going to see a lot more interest. We saw a lot of engagement or we’ve seen a lot of engagement on things like direct air capture. I think we’re going to see a lot more engagement on things like soil carbon sequestration and what forestry can do. I’ll say, you know, the appropriations conversation we just had focused a lot on the tech side, but we’re talking to offices about what the USDA can do to increase adoption for farmers and ranchers of soil carbon practices. So I’ll say there’s a lot more to come on that.
And I think we’re going to see a lot of really exciting proposals in the next several months.
Ross Kenyon: Are you keeping your colleague Jane Zelikova pretty busy?
Erin Burns: Constantly busy. Constantly busy.
Ross Kenyon: Great. Well, if you’re listening, there’s an episode of reversing climate change coming out soon with her. So I’m sure we’ll catch some of what is happening at the policy level with soil. I don’t even know what is happening at the federal level at this moment. But I imagine since so many primary contenders mentioned it in the debates that surely something is afoot, right?
Erin Burns: Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s something where, again, you know, we were just talking to some staffers today about this where, you know, I mentioned that Noah came in and kind of gave me the 411 on carbon removal five years ago. And I think that a similar process is happening for a lot of staffers on things like soil carbon, where they’re hearing a little bit more about it. You have the primary candidates talking about the opportunities there. And so they’re really trying to understand what can we do? What are the barriers?
And I think in particular, you mentioned Jane, our chief scientist, who’s She’s a soil scientist, and she’s been working with farmers and ranchers in the Mountain West on how to implement these practices and what are the specific barriers. And so a lot of that work, we’re using her expertise and her research. We are keeping her very busy to understand what are the policy changes that need to be made so that the farmers and ranchers can either access these programs or so we can get them support through different programs or increase the support through existing programs.
So I think you’ll see some stuff coming out from us soon, but you’ll also see a lot of interesting stuff Cool.
Ross Kenyon: I am intrigued and look forward to hearing more. And if there is ever any more to report on this, feel free to tell me and let’s do another show about it. Because we let this one build up too much, right? There was too much for this one episode. So everyone got like a little hors d’oeuvre version of each of these. But I think all of them could be an entree.
Erin Burns: Yeah, I totally agree. And I do think like the big thing to take away is just there’s a lot happening. It’s a really exciting time to work on carbon rule policy. And I think You know, it’s being really integrated into larger climate efforts like the Green New Deal, like the Clean Future Act. And so we’ll see increased funding. We’re going to see a bigger part of climate plans. And that goes for both the tech and the natural side.
Ross Kenyon: This is a little bit of a foolish question, but you’re out at parties in D. C. Do you get extra cred for being in carbon removal policy or people like I’m sure the ed policy people are like, oh, God, another carbon removal person. They get all the attention now.
Erin Burns: No, there aren’t as many of us as you might think, considering how much action is happening. I would say, you know, there are a couple of other organizations who spend a lot, and there are more organizations getting into this, but not as many as you think. So I don’t think that they’re exhausted from hearing about us, but I think maybe they’re a little bit jealous about how much attention Carbon Mobile is getting on the Hill.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. You know, when those questions start coming out, it’s time to wrap up.
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Ross Kenyon: Just diminishing marginal returns there coming out of me. Great. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, you both. I am happy that we got to get such a comprehensive update. And I would look forward to following more of this as it comes out.
Erin Burns: Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thanks, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: Well, thank you. And if you like the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. Tell your friends. Tell someone who needs to know that exciting things are happening in the world of carbon removal policy. And thank you so much for listening. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in Apple Podcasts and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience. If you think what we’re doing is useful, interesting, fun, hopefully all three, we’d certainly appreciate your rating and review.
[Nori promotion cut from the transcript. It’s still in the audio, but it no longer applies.] And thank you so much for your support.
