{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/heidi-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=E4E816C3-6C6C-416D-B03E-0BC2F533C06F", "Opinion Editorial: The Hill: Congress, here's a CO2-smart tax fix to protect, create jobs", "2017-11-30", "2017", "2017-11", "Democrat", "House", "ND", "Heidi Heitkamp", "H001069", "www.heitkamp.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Bob Perciasepe, D. Michael Langford, John Risch \n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tAs the Senate approaches a vote this week on tax reform legislation, there\u2019s a proposal with bipartisan support that unions, environmental groups, and industry are all backing. Incentives to support more investment in\u00a0carbon capture use and storage technology\u00a0would spur new job growth, but they will also mean that manufacturers and energy producers have the ability to preserve jobs at existing facilities, while reducing carbon emissions at the same time.\r\nThe NRG Energy\u00a0Petra Nova\u00a0carbon capture project at the\u00a0W.A. Parish coal-fired power plant about 25 miles southwest of Houston is an example of the potential to both cut emissions and protect workers.\u00a0That\u2019s because the retrofit adopting post-combustion carbon capture technology will annually extract more than 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be exhaled into the Texas sky.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe project, which is the largest of its kind in the world, was also completed with\u00a0more than 1,000 workers\u00a0contributing to the project. But successes like this in the private sector can \u2014 and must \u2014 be bolstered by partners on Capitol Hill.\r\n\r\n\r\nLeaders of both parties agree that the investments will create and preserve high-paying jobs while helping to reduce carbon emissions over the long term. Legislation to do just that has been cosponsored by a bipartisan group of 25 senators.\u00a0The FUTURE Act, as introduced by Senators\u00a0Heidi Heitkamp\u00a0(D-N.D.),\u00a0Sheldon Whitehouse\u00a0(D-R.I.),\u00a0Shelley Moore Capito\u00a0(R-W.Va.) and\u00a0John Barrasso\u00a0(R-Wyo.) would encourage investment in carbon capture projects, direct air capture projects, and the development of technology to convert carbon into useful products.\r\nWe already know this practical technology works. In Decatur, Illinois, the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)\u00a0Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Project\u00a0became the world\u2019s first commercial-scale ethanol plant retrofitted with carbon capture. Retrofitting facilities with carbon capture technology, like those projects in Decatur and Houston, creates near-term construction jobs in communities where employment is sorely needed.\r\nTwo thousand workers were involved in the\u00a0Shell Quest Project\u00a0in Alberta with 900 working daily on the\u00a0construction, and the SaskPower\u00a0Boundary Dam Project\u00a0in Saskatchewan employed roughly 600 people for construction. But, perhaps more importantly, these projects preserve the long-term jobs in communities that have depended on them for decades with the retrofits ensuring many more years of employment as upgraded plants emit far fewer carbon emissions than before. New projects in the U.S. can replicate those successes.\r\nTo help maintain American leadership in this critical area of energy infrastructure, now is the time to support adding more carbon capture projects to the development pipeline. That means providing the financial incentives for investment in these projects. \u00a0\u00a0\r\nCarbon capture applications go beyond the power sector, including great potential in\u00a0steel, cement, and fertilizer production plants, natural gas processing plants, and at refineries. On the other side of the world, the Emirates Steel \u201cAbu Dhabi CCS project\u201d became the world\u2019s first steel plant retrofitted with carbon capture technology.\r\nLow-carbon and zero-carbon technologies have benefited in the past from similar financial incentives. Federal tax credits and state portfolio standards drove deployment of wind and solar energy and helped dramatically reduce costs. What\u2019s important for Members of Congress and people concerned about carbon emissions to know is that carbon capture technology works.\r\nPetra Nova and the ADM projects are just a couple of examples. For those examples to be replicated broadly though, we need now to make these projects more economical and to identify additional uses for repurposing the captured carbon in addition to enhanced oil recovery.\r\nScaling up carbon capture technology would set the stage for cost reductions that could open the door for new industries. Last fall, the\u00a0Carbon XPRIZE\u00a0recognized 27 semi-finalists who are developing promising uses for captured carbon dioxide,\u00a0from enhanced concrete to plastics and carbon\u00a0nanotubes\u00a0for higher capacity batteries. In analyzing these finalists, making sure that the carbon stays out of the atmosphere will be an important factor.\r\nCapturing carbon from sources \u2014 like power plants or industrial processes \u2014 can be a bridge to ambitious technologies, like direct atmospheric capture of CO2 to pull the greenhouse gas directly out of the air above. These exciting new industries provide opportunities for American innovation and new jobs. The sky is the limit with carbon capture; it\u2019s that varied and diverse.\r\nWe\u2019ve seen increased levels of deployment, improved technology performance, and reduced costs in the wind and solar energy industries thanks, in part, to financial incentives. While we\u2019re right to celebrate these American successes, we must not stop there. Let\u2019s apply the same winning formula of financial incentives and state portfolio standards to drive deployment of new American energy infrastructure. As the Senate deliberates over a tax extenders package, we encourage them to include the FUTURE Act \u2014 and its financial incentives for carbon capture technology \u2014 to open the door for American innovation.\r\nBob Perciasepe is president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to forge practical solutions to climate change. He is also a former deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.\r\nD. Michael Langford is the national president of the Utility Workers Union of America, which is committed to ensuring that its members are the safest, most productive, and highest skilled utility workers in the world.\r\nJohn Risch is the national legislative director of the Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, the largest union of railroad employees in North America.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.heitkamp.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/heidi-in-the-news?ContentRecord_id=E4E816C3-6C6C-416D-B03E-0BC2F533C06F"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.516333082690835, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}