Senate approves amendment creating program to boost carbon dioxide removal technologies

The Senate recently approved a bipartisan clean air technology amendment to the Energy Policy Modernization Act, which would create a program to drive innovation in carbon dioxide removal technologies through a prize system.

“By providing a financial incentive to cut carbon pollution, we can encourage the innovation of new, affordable technologies and protect our environment,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), who proposed the amendment with U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). “We all know that climate change is the challenge of our generation, and this amendment can help create one more tool to use in the fight against it.”

The program created by the amendment would be administered by a federal commission of physicists, chemists, engineers, business managers and economists, which would fall under the Department of Energy. Public and private entities would compete by submitting technologies developed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and permanently sequester it, and winners would share the intellectual property rights with the federal government.

“This amendment encourages American ingenuity and innovation,” Sen. Barrasso said. “It makes sense to look for alternative approaches for removing and permanently sequestering excess carbon dioxide.”