Bingaman Unveils Carbon Capture and Storage Bill
March 22, 2007
04:40 PM
A clean and affordable energy future is a top bipartisan priority in the Senate. Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman believes that harnessing market forces to spur clean energy investments and technologies should be a key element of our energy policy.
Today, Bingaman, along with Committee Ranking Member Pete Domenici, introduced a bipartisan bill (S. 962) that will take the U.S. further in the direction of a comprehensive approach toward a clean energy future. The “DOE Carbon Capture and Storage Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 2007” would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to reauthorize and improve the carbon capture and storage research, development and demonstration program of the U.S. Department of Energy.
In a hearing today, experts discussed how the world can continue to use coal -- an abundant and inexpensive fuel -- without increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. A recurring theme was that carbon capture & sequestration is the critical enabling technology to help reduce CO2 emissions while also allowing coal to meet the world’s future energy demands. Here is part of Chairman Bingaman’s opening statement:
“The topic of carbon capture and storage is central to the future of coal in the United States and our future energy policy. Several of us on this Committee have been taking the lead here in the Senate to outline the practical steps that we must take to answer the questions that surround carbon capture and storage technologies and to develop a consensus on how they should be implemented.
“Earlier this month, Sens. Salazar and Bunning introduced a bipartisan bill, S.731, the National Carbon Dioxide Storage Capacity Assessment Act of 2007, with five other senators, including myself and Sen. Tester on this committee. That bill outlines a process for determining potential geological formations for the storage of carbon dioxide. I want to thank them both for their leadership and initiative.
“Today, Senator Domenici and I introduced a bill to complement the Salazar-Bunning bill. Our bill is called the DOE Carbon Capture and Storage Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 2007. This bill will improve and expand the carbon capture and storage program that we created at the Department of Energy in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Specifically, it will build on DOE’s regional carbon sequestration partnerships to ensure that we have the answers we need for this key element of our energy future.
“I am pleased to have a number of co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle on this bill, including Sens. Tester, Bunning, Salazar, Obama and Webb. I would like to inform my colleagues here that we will hold a legislative hearing on those two carbon sequestration bills in the near future, both to examine their specific provisions and to hear from experts what other steps we should be taking here in the Senate to advance the technology and utilization of carbon sequestration.”
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