EPA is allowing a first-of-its-kind marine carbon dioxide project to move forward, even as the agency strips from its website mentions of how oceans can help mitigate climate change.
The agency issued a permit Friday to Carboniferous, which will allow the Houston-based company to drop up to 16 metric tons of crushed sugarcane stalks with monitoring equipment into a deep, low-oxygen zone some 168 miles southwest of the Louisiana coast. The dumping, in what the Trump administration calls the Gulf of America, could begin in September and last through February 2028. It marks the first time the agency has authorized a company to deposit biomass bricks on the ocean floor.
The authorization comes after EPA took down a Biden-era section of the agency’s website that explained how the ocean could be used to “alleviate certain impacts of climate change” by reflecting sunlight at sea or by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it under the waves.
Federal agencies have frequently stripped mentions of climate change from government websites since President Donald Trump returned to office last year. Trump often incorrectly claims that climate change is a “hoax” and says that he considers efforts to address the problem to be a “scam.”
