More than 200 environmental and community groups are asking Congress to abolish the carbon capture industry’s main tax incentive, countering industry calls to safeguard it.
In a letter led by Food & Water Watch, the coalition called for the repeal of the 45Q tax credit and other subsidies for carbon capture and storage in Republican party-line legislation. The groups argued that CCS has not delivered “meaningful” emissions cuts despite years of federal support.
“These subsidies waste billions in taxpayer money, endanger public safety, and prop up a fundamentally flawed and unreliable technology,” the signatories said in the letter sent Monday to leaders of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.
The 45Q credit, created in 2008 and strengthened multiple times since, is one of the most important incentives for CCS and technologies that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The credit provides a monetary value per metric ton of CO2 sequestered underground, and it’s tied to a swelling number of permit applications at EPA for wells used for the geologic storage of CO2.
