S. HRG. 115–456 

LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2602, THE UTILIZING 

SIGNIFICANT EMISSIONS WITH INNOVATIVE 

TECHNOLOGIES ACT, OR USE IT ACT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 11, 2018 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2602, THE UTILIZING SIGNIFICANT EMISSIONS WITH INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES ACT, 

OR USE IT ACT 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

34–174 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019

S. HRG. 115–456 

LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2602, THE UTILIZING 

SIGNIFICANT EMISSIONS WITH INNOVATIVE 

TECHNOLOGIES ACT, OR USE IT ACT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

APRIL 11, 2018 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

ROGER WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, 

Ranking Member 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland 

RICHARD M. RUSSELL, Majority Staff Director 

GABRIELLE BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

APRIL 11, 2018 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming .......................... 1 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................... 6 

Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West Virginia ...... 8 

Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island ......... 8 

Duckworth, Hon. Tammy, U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 108 

WITNESSES 

Heitkamp, Hon. Heidi, U.S. Senator from the State of North Dakota ............... 10 

Northam, Mark A., Executive Director, School of Energy Resources, University of Wyoming .................................................................................................... 17 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20 

Response to an additional question from Senator Barrasso ......................... 29 

Friedmann, S. Julio, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon Wrangler, LLC ............... 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Response to an additional question from Senator Barrasso ......................... 39 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper .......................................................................................... 39 

Senator Duckworth ................................................................................... 43 

Senator Whitehouse .................................................................................. 45 

Deich, Noah, Executive Director, Center for Carbon Removal ............................ 51 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper .......................................................................................... 60 

Senator Duckworth ................................................................................... 62 

Senator Whitehouse .................................................................................. 64 

Jiao, Feng, Associate Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and 

Associate Director for the Center for Catalytic Science & Technology, University of Delaware .............................................................................................. 69 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 71 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper .............................. 91 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Bipartisan Group of Senators Introduce Bill to Promote Carbon Capture 

Research and Development, March 22, 2018 ..................................................... 109 

Letters: 

Algae Biomass Organization to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 10, 

2018 ................................................................................................................ 113 

ALLETE to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, April 9, 2018 .................... 114 

Arizona State University Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 8, 2018 ................................................... 116 

Basin Electric Power Cooperative to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, 

March 22, 2018 .............................................................................................. 118 

Bio-Thermal-Energy, Inc. to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 9, 2018 119 

Carbon Capture Coalition to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 11, 

2018 ................................................................................................................ 130 

ClearPath Action to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, March 22, 2018 . 132 

Cloud Peak Energy to Senator Barrasso, April 10, 2018 .............................. 133 

Page

IV 

—Continued 

CO2 Sciences, Inc .............................................................................................. 134 

Colorado School of Mines to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 17, 

2018 ................................................................................................................ 135 

Energy & Environmental Research Center to Senators Barrasso and 

Whitehouse, April 10, 2018 .......................................................................... 136 

Global Thermostat to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, April 5, 2018 ... 137 

Great River Energy to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, April 9, 2018 . 139 

Lignite Energy Council to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, April 10, 

2018 ................................................................................................................ 140 

National Mining Association to Senator Barrasso, May 7, 2018 .................. 141 

North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives to Senators Barrasso and Whitehouse, April 5, 2018 ........................................................... 142 

Third Way to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 10, 2018 ....................... 143 

Matt Mead, Governor of Wyoming, et al. to Representative Ryan et 

al. and Senator McConnell et al., February 6, 2018 .................................. 144 

Matthew H. Mead, Governor of Wyoming, to Hon. Steve Bullock, Governor of Montana, et al., February 16, 2018 ............................................... 146 

Matthew H. Mead, Governor of Wyoming, to Senators Barrasso and 

Whitehouse, April 10, 2018 .......................................................................... 149 

Western Governors’ Association to Senators Hatch and Wyden, August 

3, 2017 ............................................................................................................ 150 

Western Governors’ Association to Senators Barrasso and Carper, April 

24, 2018 .......................................................................................................... 155 

Quadrennial Energy Review: Energy Transmission, Storage, and Distribution 

Infrastructure, April 2015 ................................................................................... 156 

Global Roadmap for Implementing CO2 Utilization, CO2 Sciences and The 

Global CO2 Initiative, November 2016 ............................................................... 162 

21st Century Energy Infrastructure: Policy Recommendations for Development of American CO2 Pipeline Networks. White paper prepared by the 

State CO2-EOR Deployment Work Group, February 2017 ............................... 224 

Siting Carbon Dioxide Pipelines. Tara K. Righetti, Oil and Gas, Natural 

Resources, and Energy Journal, November 2017 .............................................. 251 

Ten Teams From Five Countries Advance To Finals Of $20M NRG COSIA 

Carbon XPRIZE, Finalists Reimagine Carbon and Will Demonstrate CO2

Conversion Tech Under Real-World Conditions, April 9, 2018 ........................ 321 

Amy’s notebook: one bipartisan thing .................................................................... 325 

(1) 

LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON S. 2602, THE UTILIZING SIGNIFICANT EMISSIONS WITH INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES ACT, OR USE IT 

ACT 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:21 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Capito, Fischer, 

Ernst, Sullivan, Cardin, Whitehouse, Gillibrand, Booker, Markey, 

and Van Hollen. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Good morning. I call this hearing to order. 

Today we are here to discuss promising bipartisan legislation recently introduced by the Chairman, along with Senators Whitehouse, Capito, and Heitkamp. 

The bill is called the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies Act, or simply the USE IT Act. It is called the 

USE IT Act because the bill would encourage the commercial use 

of manmade carbon dioxide emissions. The bill supports the use of 

carbon capture technology and innovative research at sites with the 

captured CO2. The legislation also facilitates permitting for carbon 

dioxide pipelines in order to move the carbon dioxide from where 

it is captured to where it is either stored or used. 

The USE IT Act complements and builds off of recently passed 

legislation that was introduced by the same bipartisan group of 

Senators. That one was called the FUTURE Act, the Furthering 

Carbon Capture, Utilization, Technology, Underground Storage, 

and Reduced Emissions Act, simply, the FUTURE Act. It expanded 

and extended the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture. Carbon capture can and does work. 

The Committee heard testimony from David Greeson of NRG Energy last year. Their Petra Nova project outside of Houston is the 

largest carbon capture project of its kind in the world. That project 

has now captured and used more than a million tons of carbon. The 

FUTURE Act is going to spur investment in more additional carbon 

capture projects like Petra Nova. 

2 

In developing both the FUTURE Act and the USE IT Act, Senators on both sides of the aisle have found areas of common 

ground. I appreciate Senator Whitehouse’s leadership as we work 

together to develop the USE IT Act. I am going to continue to work 

with Senator Whitehouse to ensure any amendments to this bill 

are built on bipartisan consensus as we work to move it through 

the Committee and ultimately to the President’s desk. 

In my home State of Wyoming, we are blessed with an abundant 

supply of coal, oil, uranium, and natural gas. These tremendous resources fuel our State economy and employ people in well paying 

jobs; they provide affordable and reliable power to our Nation. 

Coal, oil, uranium, and natural gas also make the United States 

more secure by making us less dependent on energy resources from 

other countries. We cannot afford to leave our resources stranded 

in the ground. That is why America must lead through innovation—and not regulation—as we continue to reduce emissions. This 

is the approach we take in the USE IT Act. 

The bill will also allow coal plants in my home State of Wyoming 

to capture their CO2 emissions and turn them into valuable products. It will encourage the use and permanent sequestration of 

CO2. Greater use of these technologies, coupled with research support from the EPA, could lead to additional innovative technologies 

that will use CO2 emissions. 

This is a market driven approach. We are encouraging the development of markets for CO2. All of these actions will result in less 

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

The USE IT Act is important for Wyoming. The Sheridan Press 

recently published a front page article titled Senate Bill Could 

Stimulate State Carbon Capture Projects. In the article Jason 

Begger, who is the Executive Director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, who has testified before this Committee, endorsed 

the USE IT Act. He explained how the legislation will allow Wyoming to diversify the use of its energy resources, and I ask that 

this article be entered into the record. 

Without objection. 

[The referenced information follows:] 

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Senator BARRASSO. The USE IT Act has two sections, one that 

promotes research and the other to facilitate development of carbon 

capture products and CO2 pipelines. 

The first title of the bill directs the EPA to conduct carbon dioxide research activities under existing authority in the Clean Air 

Act. Specifically, the EPA would provide technical and financial assistance to carbon dioxide utilization projects that use CO2 generated from industrial facilities. EPA would also administer a competitive prize program to promote another innovative technology: 

direct air capture. 

The second title is all about creating a favorable environment for 

the permitting and development of the infrastructure needed to 

make carbon capture successful. In this title, the bill clarifies that 

carbon capture utilization and sequestration projects, as well as 

carbon dioxide pipelines, should be permitted in a timely and coordinated manner. 

The bill will send an important signal to project developers that 

the Federal Government is committed to be a partner in the project 

development and in exploring new commercial uses for carbon dioxide. 

The bill also establishes a process for stakeholders to work together to identify and develop models that facilitate the permitting 

and development of carbon capture projects and carbon dioxide 

pipelines. 

So, I look forward to working with members of the Committee to 

advance this critical legislation. 

I will now turn to the Ranking Member, my friend, Tom Carper, 

for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Delighted to see our witness, our first witness, our lead-off hitter, 

who is actually quite a good hitter, as I recall, and to welcome our 

other witnesses who will follow Senator Heitkamp. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for this hearing today, and 

I want to thank you, Senator Whitehouse, and others who have 

worked, along with our staffs, to craft this legislation for our consideration. It is really a pleasure to participate in a hearing that 

focuses on solutions to climate change, as opposed to a hearing that 

focuses and fuels the debate over the science of climate change. 

Since the founding of our Union, our country has faced daunting 

challenges that at first seem impossible to overcome. With support 

from Federal, State, and local governments, Americans have found 

ways to innovate and craft solutions to overcome these challenges. 

I believe the same can and must be true when it comes to addressing climate change. Smart policies at the Federal, State, and 

local levels have spurred a clean energy revolution in this country, 

and we have achieved real results. $507 billion have been invested 

in the clean energy sector over the past 10 years, and our country 

is the leader in exporting clean air and clean energy technology—— 

a leader. 

Thanks in part to these investments in clean energy and energy 

efficiency, American consumers are paying less for energy today, 

7 

not more; jobs—some 3 million of them, in fact—have been created 

here at home to produce these clean energy technologies. 

However, if our country, and quite frankly, all countries, are 

going to address the challenge of climate change, we must do more 

to spur clean energy technology. That is why I have long believed 

that the Federal Government should foster and support the deployment of carbon capture, sequestration, and utilization technologies, 

and I have been, as a Congressman, as a Governor, and as a 

United States Senator, a strong advocate of doing just that. 

Wide deployment of carbon capture, sequestration, and utilization could significantly reduce climate pollution emissions in this 

country and abroad, and could be a real win-win for coal communities, for manufacturing, and for our climate. 

But just as with other coal related technologies, the barriers to 

carbon capture, utilization, and storage are largely financial— 

largely financial, not environmental. The reluctance of investors to 

invest in CCUS is not because we require these operations to meet 

other basic and important environmental requirements. Instead, 

investors have shied away from expensive, large scale carbon capture projects because energy prices are low. This country has struggled to put a price on carbon usage, and as a result, we are well 

on our way to ceding the economic opportunities of carbon capture 

technology to other countries, like China, which only hurt the very 

coal communities that our President says he wants to help. And a 

couple of us actually grew up in those coal communities. 

American ingenuity has always been our best tool in meeting the 

challenges our country has faced, so it just makes sense that we 

would harness the same innovative spirit in order to find smart 

ways to spur CCUS in America. 

Today we will hear, beginning with our lead-off witness, Senator 

Heitkamp, much about such innovative efforts occurring at the 

University of Delaware that, if successful, would make carbon capture a no-brainer—no-brainer—for businesses in the future. 

This legislation before us, as the Chairman has said, is intended 

to spur more innovation in projects in CCUS like the one at the 

University of Delaware that we will hear about in just a moment. 

So, for that, I applaud the underlying effort and the Chairman and 

co-sponsors for your work. 

Having said that, however, I do have one concern that I want to 

mention with the legislation which explains why I am not yet a cosponsor. For one, I am concerned that the legislation may be handing over a program to an already burdened EPA to oversee what 

may be better suited for the Department of Energy to administer. 

I am also a bit weary of discussing any additional streamlining 

provisions for this technology, when in the past two transportation 

bills we have established streamlining provisions to help these 

types of projects move through the permitting process more easily. 

I believe that before we consider a lot more streamlining measures, 

we ought to prioritize implementing the ones we have already put 

in place. Most importantly, I want to make sure that this effort is 

not connected with other efforts that may weaken the Clean Air 

Act. 

In closing, let me reiterate that we don’t need to scrap our environmental standards to provide a nurturing environment for AmerVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:08 Feb 06, 2019 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\34174.TXT SONYA
8 

ican innovation and economic investment in carbon sequestration 

technologies; they are not mutually exclusive. 

With that, we look forward to hearing from our lead-off witness 

and our other witnesses. Thank you all for being here with us 

today. 

Thank you. 

And for your leadership, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator Capito. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. I am glad to see Senator Heitkamp here and Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator Barrasso and I are the major authors of this bill. I said 

it is good to have the team back because we had a major victory 

at the end of last year with everybody’s help; we passed the FUTURE Act, which Senator Barrasso referenced in his opening statement, which reauthorized and really improved the 45Q tax credit 

for CCUS. It was a huge milestone for all of us because we had a 

bipartisan group of Senators, a diverse coalition of coal and oil industry, environmental groups, and the labor organizations that 

were supporting us, so we are now looking to the second phase and 

making sure that this technology can make it out into the field. 

Beyond the economics, we need to have adequate R&D into 

CCUS, some of that is being done at Nettle in Morgantown and at 

our universities, and that our regulatory structures aren’t so onerous so as to prevent CCUS projects and carbon dioxide pipelines 

from being permitted. 

I think there is an issue that we try to address in here, and that 

is on the carbon dioxide portion of the pipelining, which brings a 

different flavor to pipeline regulating than we have seen in the 

past. So, we are in the process of bringing together another coalition of stakeholders like the one that supported the FUTURE Act, 

and today’s hearing is part of that process. 

So, with all of us pulling together, I hope we can get another proCCUS bill. It is a win-win; it is an energy bill; it is a carbon emission reduction bill; and it will benefit all of us economically. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Capito. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. 

It is good to be working on this bill again and trying to advance 

the cause of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration. Obviously, if you are going to capture and utilize carbon dioxide, it is 

helpful to have a way to distribute it to the ultimate users, and 

that is where the pipeline piece comes in; it is a very sensible adjunct to the bill that we got passed. 

I would like to make two points. One is that pretty much everybody on the Republican side of the aisle who has thought the cliVerDate Aug 31 2005 10:08 Feb 06, 2019 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\34174.TXT SONYA
9 

mate change problem through to a solution, whether it is former 

Senators, former Representatives, former Treasury secretaries, 

former EPA administrators, former presidential economic advisors, 

they all more or less come to the same place, which is that there 

needs to be a market price on carbon dioxide emissions. 

I think we agree with that. There is usually the view that it 

ought to be revenue-neutral, it shouldn’t be revenues used to build 

more government, we don’t need to have that fight on this issue; 

and it needs to be border adjustable so a cement plant in Texas 

doesn’t face unfair competition from the same cement plant across 

the border in Mexico. 

All of that is very doable, but it is going to take a little bit more 

leadership from our friends in the fossil fuel industry before we get 

there. 

I want to make it clear that, from my experience here in the Senate, when our oil majors say they understand that climate change 

is real, they understand that their product is causing it, and they 

support a price on carbon emissions, that that is not a truthful 

statement. At the end of the day, their entire political and electioneering apparatus remains fully dedicated to making sure that there 

is no price on carbon. 

How they are going to explain to the future and to their shareholders why they say one thing publicly and direct their political 

and electioneering efforts in a completely different direction I leave 

up to them, but I am here as witness to the fact that there is zero 

political and electioneering support from those industries for the 

serious price on carbon they claim to support. So, in the meantime, 

we can do things to move things forward, and this is one of those 

ways to move things forward. 

The second point I would like to make is that we need to be very 

careful about making sure that when we are talking about regulatory efficiencies, we are really talking about regulatory efficiencies. When that becomes a code for undoing environmental protections, I am out. 

We have seen regulatory efficiencies pay off in big ways. Rhode 

Island has steel in the water and electrons flowing into the grid 

from the first offshore wind turbines in the United States because 

we designed a better regulatory process than Massachusetts did. 

Cape Wind in Massachusetts died over more than a decade of regulatory process. We did it faster, smarter, and right in Rhode Island, 

and the payoff is we got the first offshore wind in the country. 

So, there in fact are ways to make regulation achieve its purpose 

in the most efficient way. We have to guard against that being a 

screen for undoing the underlying protections, and that is a principle that I am going to bring into this bill and into all of my oversight efforts on this Committee. 

I appreciate the opportunity I have had to work with so many 

friends on this Committee on this and on the previous bill, and I 

am delighted to see my distinguished Dakotan colleague here. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Whitehouse. 

Now to the distinguished Dakotan colleague, Senator Heitkamp. 

Welcome to the Committee. Thank you for joining us and for 

your support of the bill. 

10 

STATEMENT OF HON. HEIDI HEITKAMP, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and hello to all 

my friends on the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

I think Sheldon occasionally says that because he can’t remember if it is North or South Dakota. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. It is not East or West? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. Good morning, Chairman Barrasso. 

Senator BARRASSO: If it is a road or if it is an island, yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. Or soon to be. 

Good morning, Chairman Barrasso. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. No fair, all you westerners ganging up on 

me. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. I am going to start over now. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator HEITKAMP. Good morning, Chairman Barrasso, Ranking 

Member Carper, and all of my friends and colleagues on this Committee. I want to thank you so much for the invitation to testify 

on this USE IT Act, Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies Act. 

I just want to make a point that for generation after generation 

we have seen CO2 as a pollutant, and the efforts that this Committee, in a very bipartisan way and our group of four have really 

tried to turn the page and start looking at CO2 as an opportunity 

and as a legitimate and valuable by-product. 

So, Senator Barrasso, I want to thank you so much, and your 

staff, for your incredible work on this and making it a priority of 

your office, and inviting me and allowing me to be part of that 

work. 

Senators Whitehouse and Capito, your continued work and partnership in these efforts on carbon capture, utilization, and storage 

initiatives, that leadership continues beyond the work that we did 

on our FUTURE Act, and we know that these new policies can create an environment in which innovation and implementation of 

CCUS technologies and processes are allowed to thrive and grow. 

Much has already been said about the FUTURE Act. It was one 

cog in that wheel, and we know that we need to make sure that 

we can commercialize the work that is being done that we can continue to drive the technology in ways that will amaze and astonish 

people out in the country. 

When we talk about the challenges of how to implement the policies that would encourage CCUS in this country, it was clear that 

closing the financing gap through the FUTURE Act was critical, 

but merely doing that one piece wasn’t enough. 

It was before this very same Committee last year where the FUTURE Act was being discussed during a hearing on expanding and 

accelerating the deployment and use of CCUS, and questions were 

posed to the witnesses about what additional challenges existed 

and what further policies we needed to promote CCUS. The response was clear: there needed to be a comprehensive approach 

11 

that looked across the entire Federal and State regulatory policies 

to better coordinate and establish an environment where CCUS 

projects are not burdened by long lead times or duplicative and unnecessary regulations, and that we needed to build out the infrastructure necessary to move the CO2 from the source to those areas 

that are best able to utilize it as a by-product. 

As a result of that hearing, Chairman Barrasso took the lead on 

addressing some of those very concerns, and I happily joined him 

and my colleagues, Senators Whitehouse and Capito, in that effort. 

The USE IT Act directs EPA and CEQ to prioritize and take lead 

roles at the Federal level in supporting CCUS and direct air capture research, and establishing guidance for project developers and 

operators that will allow better coordination and facilitation of 

these projects. It also clarified that existing policies facilitating the 

build out of infrastructure projects are applicable to CCUS projects 

and CO2 pipelines. 

While I will admit I am biased when it comes to advancing this 

bill and these policies, North Dakota is at the forefront of developing CCUS projects if the right conditions are met. As of yesterday, we are the first State in the country that has been authorized 

by EPA to regulate Class 5 injection wells. We have three CCUS 

projects at various stages of planning. Red Trail Energy in 

Richardton is looking to capture and store CO2 from an ethanol 

plant. Project Tundra is looking to add carbon capture equipment 

to the back end of an existing coal fired power plant in the Allam 

cycle project that could be fueled by synthetic gas produced at our 

great lignite coal resource in our State. It is really quite amazing. 

All of these projects are not what we called in the old days 

vaporware. They are real, they are being developed every day, they 

are being invested in by the State and by private entities in the 

State of North Dakota, so we are ready to go. We are ready to go 

if the conditions are right. 

To that point, I would like to submit several records or several 

letters in support of the USE IT Act. I want to make this point because I think sometimes we talk a lot about saving jobs and doing 

what we can to make sure people stay working. These employers 

represent thousands of jobs in my State, and even more jobs if we 

look at the indirect benefit of this value-added industry to my 

State. So, I would like to submit these letters in support. 

Senator BARRASSO. Without objection. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you. 

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Senator HEITKAMP. The impressive panel of witnesses that you 

have assembled to follow me are in a much better position to get 

further into the details of why this bill addresses some of those 

challenges laid out in the September hearing. What I can tell you 

is that I am certain that these efforts will lead to breakthroughs 

that provide for economic and employment benefits to our country 

and provide long term technological solutions that will allow for the 

continuation of an all of the above energy policy, all while addressing climate challenges by greatly reducing carbon emissions. 

I want to make one final statement. I think that when we are 

looking back at our legislative careers, and we are thinking how 

did we do, did we just stand in our corners and shout across the 

void and across the divide? Occasionally something will come up 

where we will say we walked across, we sat down, we figured it 

out, and we did something that actually made a difference in the 

U.S. Congress. 

I think this effort is exactly that, and I think all of us who have 

worked on this, especially the four of us who have been particularly 

engaged, will have something to talk about. We will have an example of the kind of leadership that we have exhibited while we are 

here, and I think this not only has been a wonderful piece of policy, 

it has been a wonderful example of how friends and colleagues can 

get together to actually move important policy for the people of this 

country. 

So, I proudly join and support all of my co-sponsors, and I encourage a quick resolution out of this Committee and hard work on 

the floor of the Senate to get this thing passed in the U.S. Senate. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Heitkamp. 

Glad you could join us today. Appreciate it. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. At this time, I would like to call our four witnesses to the table. 

We will now hear from our witnesses, and I am pleased to introduce Dr. Mark Northam, who is the Director of the University of 

Wyoming’s School of Energy Resources. Prior to his service at the 

university, he has had extensive research experience in the private 

sector. Additionally, he has worked as a research science consultant in the areas of carbon management and technical intelligence 

at the Research and Development Center at Saudi Aramco. Dr. 

Northam also worked at Mobil and ExxonMobil for over 20 years, 

where he held a variety of research operations and managerial positions. 

I want to thank you for your willingness to testify today. 

Additionally to Dr. Northam we have Dr. Julio Friedmann, who 

is the CEO of Carbon Wrangler, LLC. 

It is good to see you again. Welcome back to the Committee. We 

appreciate your insightful testimony at the hearing last September 

on carbon capture, and we look forward to hearing your insights 

today. 

Next is Noah Deich, who is the Executive Director of the Center 

for Carbon Removal; and Dr. Feng Jiao from Senator Carper’s 

home State of Delaware. 

17 

Senator Carper, would you like to add any few words of introduction? 

Senator CARPER. Isn’t that a great name, Feng Jiao? It means 

common sense. No, it doesn’t really, but it could, because this is 

very much a common sense approach, I think. 

After finishing his post-doctoral research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Jiao joined the faculty at the University of Delaware, I think in 2010. Was it 2010? 

Mr. JIAO. Yes, 2010. 

Senator CARPER. Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department. Today he is still at that department at the University of 

Delaware, serves as an Associate Professor. He is also the Associate Director for the Center for Catalytic Science & Technology. 

His current research focuses primarily on converting carbon dioxide 

into valuable chemicals. 

Dr. Jiao has published more than 50 articles. 

Is that true? 

Mr. JIAO. Yes, that is true. 

Senator CARPER. OK. More than 50 articles in leading scientific 

journals, such as the Journal of American Chemical Society, regarding his work in electrochemistry and nanomaterials. Just last 

year he was awarded $1 million by the Department of Energy to 

further his work on carbon capture and utilization. In addition, Dr. 

Jiao started a company called CO2 Energy LLC specializing in carbon capture and utilization. 

We welcome you, Dr. Jiao. It is great to see you. Happy that the 

First State is represented on both sides of the dais. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. I want to remind the witnesses that your full 

testimony will be made part of the record of the official hearing 

today, so we please ask you to keep your statements to 5 minutes 

so that we have time for questions. Look forward to hearing your 

testimony. 

Dr. Northam, please begin. 

STATEMENT OF MARK A. NORTHAM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

SCHOOL OF ENERGY RESOURCES, UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING 

Mr. NORTHAM. Thank you. 

Chairman Barrasso, Ranking Member Carper, and members of 

the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, thank 

you for inviting me to testify on the Utilizing Significant Emissions 

with Innovative Technologies Act, or USE IT Act. 

Senator Barrasso, thank you for the introduction. You took away 

the first 10 minutes of my testimony. 

For those of you who are here to see the other Mark, I think he 

was here today, and he is over in the House today, so sorry if you 

are disappointed. 

I came to the university following 26 years in the oil and gas industry. I have had the privilege of working on carbon dioxide utilization and storage issues, technologies and policies for the bulk of 

my career. 

For example, I was a technology leader with the Sleipner CO2

Storage Project in the Norwegian offshore from its inception. 

Sleipner CO2 Storage Facility was the first in the world to inject 

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age. The Sleipner facility has captured CO2 at the Sleipner area 

gas development since 1996. The captured CO2 is directly injected 

into the offshore sandstone reservoir. Nearly a million tons of CO2

is injected per annum, and over 17 million tons has been injected 

since inception. 

My work with carbon capture, utilization, and storage continues 

through the present day at SER, the School of Energy Resources. 

We continue to conduct important research related to the geologic 

storage of CO2 in saline aquifers, and to improve carbon dioxidemotivated enhanced oil recovery operations. 

The State of Wyoming is an ideal jurisdiction to advance research and projects related to capturing and utilizing emissions of 

CO2. For example, the Wyoming legislature provided for the development of an integrated test center to serve as an operational test 

site for CO2 capture and utilization technology developers. The Wyoming Infrastructure Authority led the development of the site 

with the support of many private and public sector entities in Wyoming. 

The ITC will soon host five semifinalists of the coal track of the 

$20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a global competition to 

develop breakthrough technologies that convert CO2 emissions from 

fossil fuel combustion into products with the highest net value. 

Competitors in this program are developing processes that utilize 

CO2 in the production of, for example, enhanced concrete, biofuels, 

nanotubes, and fertilizers. In fact, the Carbon XPRIZE finalists 

were announced Monday evening in New York City, and five of 

these finalists will be operating by the end of this calendar year in 

Wyoming. 

Wyoming is also one of a handful of States with existing CO2

pipeline infrastructure to serve an active enhanced oil recovery industry. The State has also planned for future expansion of the network through ongoing efforts of the Wyoming Pipeline Corridor Initiative, primarily for providing CO2 to parts of the State with significant demand for supply. 

I am pleased to testify today in support of the USE IT Act. My 

testimony focuses on carbon dioxide utilization section of Title I, 

which amends section 103 of the Clean Air Act to authorize the 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to support certain CCUS related research and development activities by the States, institutions of higher education, and others. 

Title I of the USE IT Act, in part, authorizes the EPA to carry 

out a research and development program for carbon dioxide utilization to promote technologies that transform carbon dioxide generated by industrial processes into a product of commercial value, 

or as an input to products of commercial value. The bill defines carbon dioxide utilization as technologies or approaches that lead to 

the use of carbon dioxide through fixation of CO2 through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis, such as through the growing of algae 

or bacteria; the chemical conversion of CO2 to a material or chemical compound in which the CO2 is securely stored; and the use of 

CO2 for any other purpose for which a commercial market exists. 

The EPA is to provide technical and financial assistance to certain eligible CO2 utilization projects, with the eligibility criteria including access to an emissions stream from a U.S. based stationary 

19 

source that is capable of providing not less than 250 metric tons 

of CO2 per day. 

I support these provisions. Not only do they create another 

source of critically needed funding for the CCUS related research 

and technologies, but also they apply to a broad swath of potential 

CCUS technologies. Eligible technologies include the use of CO2 for 

any other purpose for which commercial markets exist, which I interpret to include CO2-EOR. 

Moving to Title II, the USE IT Act first explicitly makes certain 

CCUS related projects, including CO2 pipelines, subject to the 2015 

Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act. The 

FAST Act seeks to streamline Federal environmental review and 

permitting, reducing bureaucratic redundancies for certain large 

infrastructure projects, and second, directs the Chair of the White 

House Council on Environmental Quality, in consultation with 

EPA, DOE, and others, to prepare guidance to facilitate reviews associated with the deployment of CCUS projects and CO2 pipelines. 

I support these provisions as well. In addition to financial challenges, CCUS projects face unfortunate headwinds caused by well 

intended, but nonetheless, arguably, counterproductive Federal 

policies. These policies include time consuming reviews under 

NEPA, which is a specific challenge for States such as Wyoming 

that have significant areas of Federal lands. The Underground Injection Code under the Safe Drinking Water Act also arguably 

stands as an impediment to CCUS projects due to aspects of the 

Class VI CO2 injection storage regulations that are difficult, if not 

impossible, for the private sector to utilize. Title II of the USE IT 

Act should go some way toward ameliorating these and related 

challenges facing CCUS projects and technologies. 

This concludes my testimony. I am pleased to testify today in 

support of the USE IT Act. The ongoing Federal role in supporting 

CCUS research at institutions of higher education is imperative. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Carper, and members of the 

Committee, I would be pleased to answer any questions that you 

may have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Northam follows:] 

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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you so much, Dr. Northam, for being 

here today. 

Dr. Friedmann. 

STATEMENT OF S. JULIO FRIEDMANN, 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CARBON WRANGLER, LLC 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Carper, all the 

distinguished members of the Committee, thank you so much for 

inviting my testimony. I am honored to return. I believe last time 

I was here I was pleased and proud to serve as a minority witness. 

Today I am pleased and proud to serve as a majority witness. 

My name is Julio. Until recently, I served as the Senior Advisor 

for Energy Innovation at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Prior to that, for about 2 and a half years, I was the Principal 

Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Office of Fossil Energy and 

happy to serve under Secretary Moniz there. I have spent 17 years 

working on clean energy technology and development, most of that 

focused on CCUS, and mostly from Lawrence Livermore National 

Lab. 

My testimony last September focused on CCUS as a technology 

set. Since then, a sea change has occurred regarding this critical 

and important technology. Much of this is the result of the passage 

of the FUTURE Act. In my own travels around the world, we are 

the talk of the town, and carbon is the new black. 

The Act will greatly enhance the ability of commercial CCUS 

projects. It will attract financing, and it has already reaffirmed the 

United States unambiguously as the leader worldwide in CCUS development, deployment, and policy. 

Because of that financial support for the FUTURE Act, the rate 

of CCUS deployment is now limited by a different set of issues. 

Some of those issues are associated with the cost of technology; 

some of them are associated with the use of carbon dioxide itself; 

some of them are associated with regulatory issues and permitting 

issues. 

As such, I am pleased to see the USE IT Act bill. I am pleased 

to testify in support of it. I believe that the USE IT Act will ultimately lower hurdles to investment; it will lower barriers to deployment; and ultimately it will serve the development, deployment, and export of this important clean energy technology. 

I just want to speak very briefly about direct air capture. This 

is something I have spent a lot of time working on and believe that 

this is an underserved and important technology option. 

There are simply some sources of carbon dioxide that mankind 

emits that are hard to manage, and in doing so, dealing with those 

will prove to be very expensive. Direct air capture technology today 

already beats the cost of many of those options, and those costs are 

coming down fast. There are at least three companies that are developing and deploying this technology worldwide, and I have been 

very impressed by the rate of progress. That said, there remains 

substantial technical challenges, which is part of the reason to 

have substantial focus on the research and development of them. 

The same thing can be said about the use of carbon dioxide and 

conversion to valuable products. We are seeing, again, a lot of interesting technologies developed and a lot of interesting companies 

31 

out there. The venture community, the equity companies, the 

banks that are looking at these companies have uniformly said, 

gosh, these are cool; wish we had 100 more like them behind it. 

There are simply not enough shots on net, there are not enough 

companies being fielded and deployed, and there needs to be a larger innovation thrust in order to get those technologies to market. 

In that context, Title I of this bill I think provides a pathway to 

doing so. In my own experience at the Department of Energy, we 

fielded a solicitation in this arena. We would love to see more work 

of that kind. It would be my hope that if the EPA has this research 

program and begins it, that they would actually partner with the 

Department of Energy in thinking about a good way to structure 

and execute such a program. 

With respect to CO2 infrastructure otherwise, in many ways the 

United States has already demonstrated its prowess in fielding and 

managing CCUS infrastructure. The current network of about 

5,000 miles of CO2 pipelines, the creation of class II and class VI 

statutes under the EPA and under the Safe Water Drinking Act, 

and in fact, programs like the long lived regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships have all been important to actually get this 

infrastructure up and running. 

However, there are still shortcomings to these programs. The infrastructure elements that are out there limit deployment in the 

market in many ways. These are in my written testimony, and I 

ask for you to review those. 

Many groups have acknowledged that there is a shortage in this 

infrastructure and that they prevent a limitation. These pipelines, 

these storage sites are going to be anchors for commercial development; they are going to be anchors for future manufacturing in a 

new carbon economy; they are going to be anchors for communities 

who want to preserve jobs or have growth. 

Among other things, the Department of Energy’s Quadrennial 

Energy Review volume 1.1, the work from the Global CO2 Initiative, the State CO2-EOR Working Group have all identified the 

critical issue of pipeline permitting and pipeline deployment in 

order to get this technology up and running. The most important 

of these pipelines will actually have to be built in States that don’t 

have an EOR opportunity, which are unused to the permitting and 

deployment of these. So, having pathways that will make it faster 

and easier for investors to look at the risks and say, yes, we understand that we want to build this thing and that the risks and the 

costs associated with it are realistic and manageable is an important outcome of a bill like the USE IT Act. 

I could go on, but the punchline here is if we want to get beyond 

10 million or 20 million tons of deployment, if we want to get to 

50 million to 100 million tons of deployment of CCUS, we will need 

to get this kind of infrastructure up and running. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Friedmann follows:] 

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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Dr. Friedmann. Always a pleasure to have you here. 

Mr. Deich. 

STATEMENT OF NOAH DEICH, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL 

Mr. DEICH. Good morning to the members of the Committee, and 

thank you for your invitation to testify. 

I am the Executive Director of the Center for Carbon Removal, 

a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in the Bay Area of 

California. Our mission at the Center is to build what we call a 

new carbon economy. The essential feature of the new carbon economy is the pursuit of strong economic growth fueled by innovative 

strategies for cleaning up carbon from the air in a way that protects the environment. The essential strategies for achieving a new 

carbon economy include the carbon capture technologies advanced 

in the USE IT Act, as well as other forestry, agriculture, and industrial approaches for transforming carbon pollution back into a 

valuable resource. 

In my testimony today, I will share why I believe the goals of the 

USE IT Act and other Federal policy efforts to advance a new carbon economy are so valuable and why bipartisan improvements to 

the USE IT Act could help it achieve greater positive economic and 

environmental impact. 

To begin, the co-sponsors of the USE IT Act, Chairman Barrasso 

and Senators Capito, Heitkamp, and Whitehouse, deserve immense 

credit for designing this bill to support innovative carbon capture 

technologies that will be essential for future American economic 

competitiveness and climate leadership. 

In my work, I see businesses, investors, and climate champions 

alike increasingly embrace both the direct air capture technologies, 

which use clean energy to filter carbon from ambient air, and the 

carbon use systems, which harness CO2 to produce valuable products like building materials or clean fuels that are supported by 

this Act. We need these technologies to halt climate change. 

And if we support research development and demonstration of 

these technologies domestically today, exactly like the USE IT Act 

does, we can ensure that the U.S. exports, not imports, direct air 

capture and carbon use systems in the decades to come, creating 

good jobs and wealth creation in geographies across America. 

In addition, the USE IT Act is highly complementary to the 45Q 

tax credit, which was reformed earlier this year to include both direct air capture and carbon use systems. 

Just as Julio has mentioned, I have seen 45Q improve the investment outlook for carbon capture technologies nearly overnight. But 

for this policy to advance, the full suite of carbon capture solutions, 

additional Federal investment in R&D across agencies is needed to 

make new solutions like direct air capture and carbon use more 

economically competitive. 

The bipartisan nature of 45Q also provides an important model 

for advancing this legislation. I see bipartisanship as essential, as 

the investors and companies that we work with need to have confidence that any legislation will endure through routine political 

transitions. 

52 

The main concerns that I have heard about this legislation come 

from environmental groups, who primarily worry that components 

of this bill could lead to the erosion of foundational environmental 

loss. Ensuring that the amendment process for the USE IT Act is 

done in a bipartisan manner and that the language in the bill is 

bolstered to ensure that it will not be used to weaken valuable environmental laws will be essential for building support for this bill 

from those environmental constituencies. 

I am actually very hopeful that the bipartisan process exemplified by 45Q can be a model for addressing concerns about the USE 

IT Act swiftly. Congressional legislation aimed at building a new 

carbon economy can steer us toward a future where we solve climate and economic challenges hand in hand. 

I applaud this Committee for its leadership in pioneering the 

next generation of these carbon capture technologies, and I would 

also like to use this opportunity to invite the members of the Committee to join us at the Center for any future events related to 

building a new carbon economy, and I hope that we can be a resource to you all moving forward. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Deich follows:] 

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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you so much for your thoughtful testimony. 

Dr. Jiao. 

STATEMENT OF FENG JIAO, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF 

CHEMICAL & BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING AND ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR THE CENTER FOR CATALYTIC 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE 

Mr. JIAO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Senator 

Carper, and the rest of the Committee. 

My name is Feng Jiao. I am Associate Professor of Chemical and 

Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. I also 

serve as the Associate Director for the Center for Catalytic Science 

and Technology. 

My research group currently raised support from NASA and Department of Energy, as well as the National Science Foundation to 

develop new CO2 utilization technologies. 

As a critical component in CCUS, carbon utilization holds the 

key to generate revenues which can offset the capture cost, as well 

as the initial investment. An example is CO2 enhanced oil recovery 

technology, a most successful approach to utilize CO2 and generate 

revenues. To fully utilize this kind of technology, additional capital 

investment in CO2 pipelines and infrastructure are often required. 

In principle, the carbon capture facility could be built right next to 

the utilization site. 

A good example is a Swiss company called Climeworks, who built 

the first commercial plant to capture carbon dioxide directly from 

air and sells locally to greenhouse for profit. The facility actually 

can capture up to 900 tons of CO2 per year. The concept is very 

appealing, of course. There are some technical challenges for these 

kinds of technologies. One of them is the capture cost is still high 

compared to other carbon capture technologies. 

At the University of Delaware, we are actively developing alternative approaches to utilize CO2. Thanks to the recent award from 

the Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory, 

we are able to develop an electrochemical system which can convert 

carbon dioxide into useful chemicals. The so called CO2 electrolyzer 

can produce useful chemicals, such as ethanol, ethylene, and 

syngas, from CO2 and water. 

The technology is intrinsically scalable and ideal for distributed 

systems at CO2 point sources. If powered by low cost renewable 

electricity, the CO2 electrolysis technology could provide a profitable approach to use CO2 as the carbon source for commodity 

chemical production. 

At Delaware, we also established a startup company called CO2

Energy LLC to commercialize the CO2 electrolyzer technology. 

Large international energy companies, such as Shell and TOTAL, 

are also actively involved in developing this kind of technology. Because of these efforts, the performance of CO2 electrolyzers have 

been rapidly improved recently. Of course, the technology itself is 

still premature for commercial deployment, so more R&D efforts 

and more investment is urgently required in the United States to 

further this technology so that we can be the global leader in this 

clean air technology. 

70 

Again, innovations in CO2 utilization are much needed because 

this is the only way to generate revenue streams for CCUS. Any 

CCUS operation fully relying on government subsidies is not sustainable. I fully support further investment in advanced CCUS 

technologies, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may 

have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jiao follows:] 

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Senator BARRASSO. We are very grateful for your testimony. 

Thank you for joining us today from Delaware. 

We will start with rounds of questions for 5 minutes, and I will 

start with Dr. Northam, if I could. 

The State of Wyoming’s leadership in carbon capture and utilization is very impressive. Through the university’s work and initiatives like the Integrated Test Center in Gillette, Wyoming has already established itself as an innovative hub. The recent passage 

of the FUTURE Act has spurred interest in investment in carbon 

capture projects. 

Do you think the USE IT Act’s focus on permitting capture 

projects and pipelines is going to increase the interest that you are 

seeing, and can you explain why? 

Mr. NORTHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a large demand for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery in the State of 

Wyoming, a demand that cannot be met by traditional supply. For 

example, in the Big Horn Basin, where there is no supply of CO2

today, there is easily a billion barrels of incrementally recoverable 

oil if we had access to CO2. 

Infrastructure is certainly a large obstacle. The FUTURE Act has 

great potential for incentivizing anthropogenic CO2 availability. 

The USE IT Act’s impact on easing the development of infrastructure—— 

Senator CARPER. What is anthropogenic? 

Mr. NORTHAM. I am sorry. Anthropogenic CO2 is carbon dioxide 

that has been captured from some source that is created by man, 

combustion of coal, fossil fuels, or some industrial process, as opposed to natural CO2 which we use today, which is carbon dioxide 

that is stripped from natural gas where the two are comingled in 

the reservoir. 

Senator CARPER. The Chairman and I knew this. We just wanted 

to make sure our colleagues did, so thank you very much for your 

clarification. 

Mr. NORTHAM. Yes, I assumed that you knew that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NORTHAM. But I apologize. I will be more careful. 

Senator BARRASSO. That was for the record only. Everybody here 

knew it. Everyone here on the panel knew it. 

Mr. NORTHAM. It comes from the Latin. No, never mind. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NORTHAM. The USE IT Act’s impact on easing the development of infrastructure is the next step in the process of developing 

infrastructure, so I would say that, absolutely, yes, the USE IT Act 

has a great potential for not only spurring the carbon capture and 

utilization side of the process, but will have an economic impact on 

the State of Wyoming. 

Senator BARRASSO. Dr. Friedmann, if I could go to you. What I 

want to point out is you mention in your written testimony the current scale of CO2 pipelines is inadequate, inadequate to support 

widespread carbon capture projects. 

Don’t we need a coordinated and rapid buildout of CO2 infrastructure in the country to meet the projected needs, and would the 

USE IT Act address that need? 

94 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Thank you. Yes, this is not the first time this 

question has been asked or studied. Back in 2008 Pacific Northwest 

National Lab did a fairly comprehensive study to figure out how 

much CO2 pipeline network we needed in this country, and their 

estimate was, to hit our goals by 2030, we needed something on the 

order of 20,000 to 30,000 miles of CO2 pipelines, and we also needed them in areas that are not traditional EOR provinces. 

We needed them in places where they could provide access to 

sale and formation storage, and a lot of those are actually in the 

Midwest, in particular, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan. These are States that currently lack CO2 infrastructure, but would benefit from the ability to store CO2. 

As I said earlier, and I want to underscore this point, that infrastructure, like any other substantial shared infrastructure, becomes a magnet for industry; becomes a magnet for development; 

becomes an opportunity for economic growth, so I see these things 

as highly complementary and positive. 

Senator BARRASSO. Dr. Northam, you talked about carbon dioxide being used in enhanced oil recovery. Part of the purpose of the 

bill is also to promote research in additional uses of carbon. It is 

going to allow carbon dioxide to have commercial purposes even in 

areas across the country that aren’t blessed, like we are in Wyoming, with oil resources. 

Can you talk a little bit about how this bill could encourage research in those other areas as well? 

Mr. NORTHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, yes. Wyoming’s Integrated Test Center is an example of how this bill will encourage 

research into other uses. It provides a facility with adequate space 

for research and access to significant emission stream; it provides 

space for scale up of successful projects, which I would say is our 

most critical need at this time; and it provides for competitive 

funding to be put to work. 

All of these elements, especially the stated support for scale up, 

are critical to the success of CO2 utilization schemes. The ITC went 

from concept to reality rapidly, but there is still a need for additional programs like the ITC to expand and sustain this effort, and 

I believe that that is a critical deliverable from the USE IT Act. 

Senator BARRASSO. Dr. Friedmann, section 202 of the bill I think 

is critical. This section brings stakeholders together to promote the 

development of capture projects in CO2 pipelines across the country. How would this part of the USE IT Act address the need for 

better State and Federal coordination, a point that you raised in 

your written testimony? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Thank you for asking, and happy to discuss. 

One of the things that is the case is that we haven’t actually deployed a lot of CO2 storage wells. We haven’t deployed a lot of carbon capture facilities in this country. As a consequence, we haven’t 

actually tested or coordinated the existing regulatory base that is 

out there, and in many cases what we have there we recognize can 

be an impediment. 

Just as one example, there has only been one class VI well permitted in this country. There haven’t been a whole bunch of people 

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mitted. It took 54 months. It took a very, very long time, and that 

is a hurdle to investors. 

If people are looking at this and say it is going to take 6 years 

to get the pipeline built, while it is going to take 5 years to get the 

well permitted, then it makes it much harder for them to make the 

investment decision to build whatever needs to be built, including 

this kind of infrastructure. 

And I mention this specifically because the wise individuals who 

put together the FUTURE Act also put together a fuse on it. You 

have to have projects begin construction by January 1st, 2024, and 

that timeline is actually a very good one; it creates an incentive for 

people to get busy and get moving. 

However, if people can overcome the financial hurdle and then 

see a regulatory hurdle behind it that they think will limit the 

chance for them to take advantage of those tax credits or take advantage of the opportunities that CCUS projects and technologies 

provide, then it will just limit the pool of applicants, it will limit 

the projects, and it will limit deployment. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, our thanks to all of you. Every now and then we ask 

unanimous consent to enter for the record a question or series of 

questions, and I would ask unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman, a 

letter from 14 environmental groups that have some concerns 

about Title II of the legislation. 

Senator BARRASSO. Without objection. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. 

[The referenced information was not received at time of print.] 

Senator CARPER. Let me start off, if I could, with Dr. Jiao. 

Thank you so much for your work at the University of Delaware. 

You make us proud every day. Is anybody here with you from the 

University of Delaware, like anybody from Angie’s List over your 

left shoulder? Angie, welcome. And for others who might be here 

who are also part of Blue Hen Nation. Thank you. 

Dr. Jiao, in your opinion, what is the smartest way we could be 

investing Federal dollars to ensure that carbon capture and utilization become mainstream? And why is your work at the University 

of Delaware so important for a carbon-free future? 

Mr. JIAO. Thank you, Senator. So, I think the key to get people 

onboard, particularly the people from industry, is to make CCUS 

profitable. So, I think I concur with some of the earlier points by 

made by Senator Whitehouse, as well. In the past, the investment 

in CCUS was mostly on the capture side and storage. Although 

such technology is fantastic, and we definitely need it, I don’t think 

it can generate any revenue, which becomes the problem because 

this is not a sustainable business by itself. 

So, I believe we should pay more attention to the utilization side, 

particularly I think the USE IT Act actually creates a lot of efforts 

in moving toward that direction, which I am really glad to see. 

We work on universal data which is actually kind of motivated 

by this motion. We are trying to make the utilization more favorable or economically more favorable compared to other technologies 

on the market, and if we can find a way to make CO2 into some 

96 

valuable chemicals, that will potentially disrupt the current chemical production process. Mostly, we use derived carbon source, but 

now we can move away from that using CO2 instead, and I think 

that will actually help us to reduce the CO2 emissions. 

Senator CARPER. All right, thank you. 

I want each of you to answer this question very briefly, and if 

you say no way, that would be OK too. 

Almost every piece of legislation I have introduced, and sometimes with colleagues that are here today on this Committee, it is 

rare that I introduce legislation that is perfect. Maybe never. I 

would just say, Dr. Jiao, if you had to pick maybe one area that 

we could improve this legislation, very briefly, what might that be? 

Then I am going to ask our other witnesses to do the same. Just 

one area where you think we can actually make an improvement, 

please. Just briefly. 

Mr. JIAO. I think my work quite recently is mostly funded by 

DOE, so I think DOE has a lot of experience investing in these carbon capture utilization technologies, so the bill actually is going to 

ask EPA to administer these efforts, so I think probably they 

should coordinate across the agency somehow so they then will 

make the investment more efficient. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Deich. 

Mr. DEICH. Thank you, yes. I think section 202, with the Task 

Force, can be strengthened, both to build on what Dr. Friedmann 

said, around the environmental integrity for storing carbon long 

term, as well as for understanding really what the frontier of the 

regulations need to look like, especially around carbon use and the 

carbon accounting there. I think the National Academies are a 

great resource, so coordinating with them for implementing this 

task force would be very valuable. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thank you. 

Dr. Friedmann. Do you pronounce your name Julio? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Yes, sir, Julio. 

Senator CARPER. Good, the right way. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Super quickly, a different variant on what Dr. 

Jiao said, it would be great to have DOE engagement in this process because they understand how to do this, and it has been a 

while since the EPA has executed research of this type. They would 

be strengthened by having that joint partnership. 

I would also agree with Mr. Deich about the opportunity to try 

to strengthen and clarify the purpose of section 202, that you want 

to ensure that you do in fact find ways to amend and improve the 

permitting and the regulatory aspects of this without actually endangering key environmental provisions. And if there is some way 

to add language that would strengthen and clarify those goals, I 

think that would probably be valuable. 

The last point I would just make is there is in fact a need to have 

improved lifecycle analyses and understanding of the true carbon 

emissions associated with all of this work. Having that maybe 

under NIST, maybe some other organization, maybe the EPA, but 

trying to find a way to formalize the standards around these kinds 

of technologies would be helpful. 

Senator CARPER. OK, good. Thanks. 

97 

Same question, Dr. Northam. 

Mr. NORTHAM. Thank you very much. So, I would cite two simple 

ways that I think this could be improved. Title 101 that focuses on 

air capture, I would love to see it expanded to focus on any type 

of capture of CO2. Capture from point sources is critically important. The technologies are farther along in terms of their development, so supporting the deployment of that I think would be an important improvement. 

The second would be to not only focus on research, but one of the 

most critical needs for technology developers is funding for the development and scale up process, and that is the valley of death that 

tends to be very difficult for inventors and innovators to overcome, 

so some addressing that part of the process would also, I think, improve this Act. 

Senator CARPER. Great. Thank you all for those responses. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just make an observation here that I don’t think anyone 

has made yet, and it has to do with fossil fuels. I can remember 

9 years ago, when President Obama first came in, he had this commitment to do away with fossil fuels, and I can remember going 

back to Oklahoma. I remember it so well because it was Shattuck, 

Oklahoma. I doubt any of you have ever been to Shattuck, Oklahoma. 

Someone said, Senator Inhofe, I don’t quite understand. We have 

a President who is against fossil fuels, coal, oil, and gas, and yet 

that is accountable for 80 percent of the energy it takes to run this 

machine called America. He said, now, if he is successful in doing 

away with it, how do we run the machine called America? 

That was a logical question, and we dealt with that for a long 

period of time. Now, today, we have an answer, and I think this 

is really exciting. This is something that is a recognition that we 

will have to continue to use fossil fuels as a major part of our energy supply in a way that satisfies everyone. So, it is one of these 

rare cases where you have a lot of agreement from people who have 

disagreed in the past. 

Dr. Friedmann, I was here for the opening statements. We go 

back and forth because we have nine members in common between 

this Committee and the Commerce Committee, so you are seeing 

people come and go. But I remember you made reference in your 

opening statement to the FAST Act permitting reform, and I think 

more people need to talk about that, because we can get things 

done. The FAST Act is a good example. We did the FAST Act primarily because of that permitting reform. We are able to do things 

on a timeline that can be enjoyed by all Americans, so I appreciate 

your bringing that up. 

Dr. Friedmann, your testimony illustrates a problem that exists 

regarding the need for CO2 pipeline infrastructure and its effect in 

deploying the CCUS in the United States. Now, specifically, I will 

read the quote that is the basis of my question: ‘‘Ambiguities in the 

process or delays in permitting directly affect the financial viability 

of projects and their ability to attract investors.’’ 

98 

What are the roadblocks that you see out there that are in the 

development of the CO2 pipeline? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Thank you for asking. 

Senator INHOFE. You know, I think about it, it might have 

been—— 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Dr. Northam. 

Senator INHOFE [continuing]. Northam who brought up the question on permitting, so I am sorry. Either one of you guys. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. You want to talk about section 201? 

Mr. NORTHAM. You go ahead. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. All right, I will go. 

It is sad, but true, pipelines are orphaned in this whole discussion. A lot of people are happy to run storage projects, EOR 

projects, even capture projects on industrial plants, power plants. 

Not a lot of people want to build or operate the pipelines, so it is 

hard to gather the financing to build them. So, it is born problematic; it is just one of those parts of the system that is hard to get 

done. 

So, if people look at the setup and say, wait a second, I am not 

sure if the permit will go through, or I think it will take a very 

long time, and I am going to be paying interest on capital before 

anything gets built, it just chills the investment environment. It is 

just that simple. It is hard to pull together an investment of that 

scale and size. Many of these pipelines will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, and that is not easy to pull together. 

Senator INHOFE. Yes, good. 

Dr. Northam, the Integrated Test Center in Wyoming will be 

used to test different ways to repurpose carbon dioxide from a coal 

fired power plant. I am really interested in the repurposing element of this, and I would like to have you elaborate on your feelings how successful this could be and what we need to do to give 

you the resources you need to make this happen. 

Mr. NORTHAM. Thank you for the question. So, the chemistry of 

converting carbon dioxide into anything else is very difficult. It is 

a very energetically stable molecule, so we need research to understand how to go from an energetically stable molecule into other 

products. A lot of what we use today is carbon based products, plastics, petrochemicals, fuels, so it is entirely doable. The question is 

can we do it efficiently and at a cost that competes with other 

sources of carbon. 

Integrated Test Center has overcome some of the big hurdles for 

people who are working in this arena by providing not only an 

emission stream, but space for them to work. And then enterprises 

like the XPRIZE and some of the competitions that are promised 

in the USE IT Act are going to spur people to take on these difficult problems because the prize at the end of the pipeline, if you 

will, is significant. 

Senator INHOFE. My time has expired, but I would be interested, 

for the record, in any of the rest of you who have ideas and 

thoughts on the repurposing element of this, and I would like very 

much to have the benefit of that, if you don’t mind doing it. Any 

comments right now, but my time has expired. 

Mr. DEICH. I will volunteer quickly that I think there is an important role of sequestering carbon in building materials, whether 

99 

that is cements, roads, et cetera; and that the Federal Government 

can play a large role in being a first customer and a driver of those 

markets. So, the extent to which we can build on the first title of 

this bill to support those utilization technologies in our built environment will be very valuable. 

Senator INHOFE. Good. 

Any other comments for the record. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. I would agree that building materials, in particular concrete and cement, is very important. We move 55 billion 

tons of concrete every year around the world. That is a big sink; 

and actually adding CO2 to it improves the performance and makes 

it heavier and makes it more durable. There are a lot of good 

things that come from it. 

Eventually, we will also reach a day when we will directly convert carbon dioxide into fuels. Right now that costs about twice or 

three times what a conventional liquid fuel would cost, but if in 

fact you can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, and you can upgrade 

it to a fuel, then you have a circular economy. 

What I do believe is every major oil and gas company is looking 

at that. They are not going to deploy it anytime in the next 5 or 

10 years, but they all see that that is something that they need to 

track and would like to figure out a way to offer something like 

that to their customers. CCUS technology is helpful. 

Senator INHOFE. That is fascinating. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate being 

here today on a matter where, to quote Senator Inhofe, we have 

agreement from people who have disagreed in the past; and indeed 

disagree in the present; and indeed will continue to disagree in the 

future about many things. 

Senator INHOFE. But every time we have agreed it has been very 

successful. You look at the chemical act, the FAST Act. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I have learned that when we agree, Senator Inhofe is perhaps the most effective legislator in the Senate. 

Certainly, I have seen nobody produce more. So, we just need to 

find out how to agree on more. But I really appreciate this and look 

forward to working with my colleagues. 

I guess what I would ask in my time is the record be clear what 

the sort of baseline proposition is here, why it matters to reduce 

our emissions of carbon dioxide, our anthropogenic emissions of 

carbon dioxide, starting with Dr. Northam. 

Why are we doing this? Why does it matter? What does this 

help? 

Mr. NORTHAM. Senator Whitehouse, thank you very much. On 

Saturday I was on a panel with the Ambassador from the EU to 

the United States, and one of the statements he made was Europe 

got over the hurdle of recognizing that carbon dioxide was contributing to global warming 20 years ago and has a very effective set 

of policies and procedures for reducing the CO2. I think it is important because time is ticking. Most of the scientific community recognizes that CO2 is contributing to global 

100 

warming; we are starting to see the impacts of it. These solutions 

are extremely technically difficult and expensive, and if we don’t 

start actually making some progress, the progress we do make 

could be too late for staving off these major impacts. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Plus, other countries might steal a march 

on us technologically. 

Mr. NORTHAM. Absolutely. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Same question, Dr. Friedmann. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Thank you, Senator. All of this actually flows 

back in a real politic context; not in a scientific context, but in a 

real practical politics concept back to the Paris Agreement, and this 

is completely independent of whether or not the United States remains in it, although I personally think that would be a lovely 

thing. 

First of all, the punchline is that greenhouse gases emissions 

represent a threat to national security of the United States; they 

represent a threat to our—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And carbon dioxide. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Sorry? 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Carbon dioxide is one of those greenhouse 

gases? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Carbon dioxide is the most important of those. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Got it. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. We emit 38 billion tons over the year, and that 

is an issue; ‘‘we’’ meaning the globe, not the United States. 

It represents an environmental threat. We have extinctions, we 

are losing species, we have sea level rise, coral bleaching, all those 

other sorts of things, which are directly attributable to greenhouse 

gas emissions. 

In addition to that, we are starting to have economic impacts 

that are associated with that that are rather grim and problematic. 

That, however, as important as that is and as much as I spend 

my time on it, it is not the most important thing. The most important thing is actually 197 countries have all said that they care 

about it, which means the entire global market is organized now. 

The entire global market is organized now to figure out ways to reduce emissions and to turn carbon dioxide into value. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And putting aside everything else, participating in that global market has economic value for the United 

States. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Indeed. As export technologies to the United 

States, both in terms of product and in terms of heavy equipment. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Mr. Deich. Did I pronounce your name 

right? If I didn’t, I apologize. 

Mr. DEICH. You did. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. DEICH. So, I think the bottom line here is this is going to 

be the economy of the future, figuring out how to take the carbon 

that is already in the air and pulling it back in a way that improves the economy and the environment. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And we need to get the carbon dioxide out 

of the atmosphere because of what? 

Mr. DEICH. Because of both the environmental harm that could 

come from climate change, as well as all of the other changes to 

101 

our society. But I really see this as an opportunity. There are 2 trillion tons of CO2—trillion with a T—that have been put into the atmosphere. All of that can come back out as a valuable resource, 

and that is the biggest business opportunity that we have ever 

seen. So, if we can figure out how to do that across the economy, 

that is a huge opportunity that simultaneously solves these massive global challenges on hand. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Hard to do any of that if there is no price 

on carbon, though, because then there is no revenue stream, correct? 

Mr. DEICH. I would actually argue that there is now a price on 

carbon in not a clean way, as an economist like myself would want, 

but we do have, both with 45Q, a price on sequestering carbon—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Precisely. 

Mr. DEICH [continuing]. And through a series of other—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Precisely. That is what we did in that bill, 

was to create a very narrow specific version of it, correct? 

Mr. DEICH. The extent to which we can expand on that and make 

sure that there is a robust market, and that that market happens 

here first is essential. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Dr. Jiao, the reason we want to or benefit 

from reducing carbon dioxide anthropogenic emissions into the atmosphere is? 

Mr. JIAO. So, I think much has been said about the potential climate impact when we emit tremendous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. I also concur with some of the points made before. I see 

this as an opportunity to generate profitable pathways to utilize 

CO2. We definitely have an abundant source of CO2. If we can figure out a way how we can make CO2 into valuable chemicals or 

fuels, probably, and in an efficient way, then this will solve our 

issue, I think. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator Capito, again, thank you so much for your co-sponsorship and your hard work on this piece of legislation. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you. I want to thank everybody on the 

panel, too, and I want to start out talking again on the pipeline 

issue because I think this is a concern if we are going to move forward. In the answers you gave to the previous question, obviously, 

this is a stumbling block. 

I have a figure here that says 4,500 miles of CO2 pipelines are 

in this country now, but are any of those interstate; do any of them 

cross State lines, as far as you know? 

Mr. NORTHAM. Yes. The quick answer is yes. There are pipelines 

that deliver CO2 that is produced in Colorado to west Texas for enhanced oil recovery. There are others as well, but yes, there are 

interstate. 

Senator CAPITO. OK. My point being there, obviously, is the permitting interstate obviously is a part of this bill, it is critically important. 

The next question I have is on what we were talking about just 

a few minutes ago. I think you all have done a really nice job talking about why CCUS is important for the environment, for our 

102 

economy, and for job creation and others. I come from, obviously, 

a heavy coal State. This is very important to us in terms of being 

able to have the longevity in the coal industry, but also the environmental benefits are important to us, as well. 

So, in our experts’ opinion, would you say that the United States 

is a leader now in CCUS technologies? I think you have already 

mentioned—I am just going to throw this up to anybody—what 

other countries are really forward thinking here? I know you mentioned the European Union. Are there other countries that we 

should be looking at who are developing this technology at a more 

rapid and more advanced state? 

Dr. Friedmann. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. So, I am pleased to say that the United States 

is now the unambiguous leader in carbon capture and storage technology, and in no small part, again, because of the passage of the 

FUTURE Act. 

I would say that there are many countries that are working to 

catch up. Canada is most notable in this regard. Also, Norway has 

been an international class leader. In the context of both carbon 

capture, but even more importantly for CO2 conversion and use, 

China is coming on strong, for real. 

I would point, among other things, to the Strategic Applied Research Institute, SARI, in Shanghai Technical University. They 

have built a building there that has 100 scientists; they are gearing 

up to 1,000 scientists. It is underwritten by the Chinese Academy 

of Sciences. All of that is focused on carbon capture and utilization. 

The same thing can be said about Japan. Again, the same thing 

can be said about Canada. Out of the 10 finalists for the NRG 

COSIA XPRIZE, four of them are Canadian. Not a knock on Canada, we love Canada, but it would be lovely to see America’s unambiguous leadership in this arena. 

Senator CAPITO. Well, obviously, there would be tremendous economic benefits to us, and I would like to see that as well. 

Do the two of you have anything to add on that? 

Mr. DEICH. Thank you, Senator. I think one of the things where 

we have not seen a leader emerge yet is in the direct air capture 

field. I think there are many places that are positioned to do that, 

and the United States is one of them, but unless there is action 

from policymakers, that leadership could easily go somewhere else 

right now. So, I think that figuring out how to be that leader is 

essential today. 

Senator CAPITO. Dr. Jiao. 

Mr. JIAO. Regarding the technology I am working on, actually, 

Canada, Europe, and even China, they are actually very aggressive 

in this area, so if we don’t act now, I think we will lose the leadership. 

Senator CAPITO. We just had a discussion in your answers about 

global warming and the threat that you all perceive there. Is there 

any realistic way for the world to stay below the commonly identified 2 degree Celsius global mean temperature in increase target 

this century without broad CCUS? Can we do it as a Nation without this development of this technology and utilization of the technology? 

103 

Mr. NORTHAM. My opinion, but the simple answer is no, we cannot. 

Senator CAPITO. Dr. Friedmann. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Doubling down on that, actually, we are, instead, poised to massive overshoot, and every credible scenario not 

only has large scale CCUS deployment in the next 20 years, but 

also large scale carbon removal after 2050, which requires carbon 

capture and storage and things like direct air capture. 

Senator CAPITO. Did you have a comment? 

Mr. DEICH. I would agree. 

Senator CAPITO. Right. 

Mr. JIAO. Yes, I agree. 

Senator CAPITO. All right. Thank you all very much. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Capito. 

Senator Van Hollen. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank all of you. Sorry I missed the testimony; I was in another 

committee, but I have had a chance to look it over, and I strongly 

support this legislation. I should mention that in Maryland we 

have a company called AES. It is the Warrior Run power plant in 

Cumberland, Maryland, where they capture 4 percent of the carbon 

dioxide generated and sell 150 tons per day to beverage grade carbon dioxide in the food and beverage industry. So, I support this 

legislation. 

But I do want to pick up on some of the comments Senator 

Whitehouse made and responses that you all made, which is that 

the reason we are doing this, the reason we are actually spending 

taxpayer dollars to do this is that there is a public good to be had 

from reducing carbon, and therefore, trying to address the problem 

of climate change. 

Just a yes or no from each of you. 

Mr. NORTHAM. Yes. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Oh, yes. 

Mr. DEICH. Yes. 

Mr. JIAO. Yes. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. So, I am looking at a lot of the projects 

that have been funded by DOE, and all of these projects for carbon 

capture, at least at this point in time, have required some public 

financing in order to be economically viable, right? 

Mr. NORTHAM. Yes. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Yes. Happy to talk more about that, too. 

Mr. DEICH. Yes. 

Mr. JIAO. Yes. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. And the FUTURE Act that was just 

passed is another tax incentive, right? So, I just want to be clear 

with my colleagues; we are spending taxpayer money to reduce carbon dioxide, and the only reason I can see for spending taxpayer 

money on doing that is if we have a benefit from reducing carbon 

dioxide. That benefit, as the witnesses have said, is trying to address climate change and making sure we are well positioned in a 

global economy where the rest of the world recognizes we need to 

head in that direction. 

104 

As of today, as of today, we are trying to change that; what is 

the cost per ton in terms of the public subsidy to make carbon removal economically viable? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. To ask a clarifying question, are you asking 

what is required or what is it today? 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. What is required today, in terms of a public subsidy, to make a carbon capture enterprise economically feasible? I mean, the FUTURE Act was part of that, right? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. Yes. So, when I was working in the Department 

of Energy, I worked with the White House and the Treasury, and 

we put forward a specific proposal for something about the order 

of $60 per ton as essentially like a production tax credit, along the 

lines of the FUTURE Act, and we also suggested a 30 percent investment tax credit. You need some capital treatment as well as 

some operating treatment. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. So, you need a public subsidy on both 

pieces there. 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. It is worth noting that that incentive on the order of $60 a ton is about the same as the wind production tax 

credit. It is along the lines of other incentives we have made for 

other kinds of clean energy. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. And you made the important point, Dr. 

Friedmann, all of you said that carbon capture needs to be part of 

the solution to climate change, but Dr. Friedmann, you mentioned 

all the scenarios there. Those scenarios, to make sure we are under 

the 2 percent Celsius, they also require reduction in carbon emissions, do they not? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. That is in fact their primary constraint. The 

scenarios all say we have to stay to a 2 degree world, so we have 

to deeply reduce our carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. Right. So, I am glad that we are spending 

some public dollars for this public good, to sequester carbon and to 

reduce carbon that is generated, but when you look at those models, how much of the reduction has to come, Dr. Friedmann, from 

actually reducing the overall emissions? 

Mr. FRIEDMANN. So, in order to hit a 2 degree target by 2020, 

you have to have something on the order of 85 percent reduction 

in greenhouse gas emissions. There are many pathways to do that; 

it requires efficiency improvements, deep deployment of renewable 

power, as well as carbon capture and storage. 

Senator VAN HOLLEN. Appreciate it. 

I would just say, Mr. Chairman, to all my colleagues, and this 

is an appeal, what we are doing here is using taxpayer dollars for 

the purpose of helping the market toward carbon sequestration, 

and that is putting a price implicitly on this project, and as of 

today, for quite a smaller price, you can actually generate some reductions today. So, I would just hope, if we are going to be taking 

this public policy direction as a Committee, that we not look at just 

this very important piece, and it is an important piece, but that we 

look at everything else at the same time. 

I appreciate all of you for being here today, and thank you for 

your efforts in this particular area. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Van Hollen. 

105 

Senator Markey. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

I would just note this at the top. I see that this is a bill ulti- mately that is $25 million that would be going to the EPA administrator for Direct Air Capture Technology Advisory Board and then 

another $50 million for the USE IT Act, and I just want to stipulate this once again, that back in 2009, in the House of Representatives, we passed the Waxman-Markey bill, and Henry Waxman and 

I put in $200 billion for carbon capture and sequestration, $200 billion. And the coal industry turned it down cold, $200 billion they 

turned down. 

So here we are now, and they are asking for this money, and I 

step back, and I keep saying to myself you missed your shot; it was 

there. The $200 billion would have done the research, would have 

had the advisory boards, could have given the money to each one 

of the utilities or to oil companies or coal companies to be able to 

do the job, and they said they didn’t want it. And that is fine, OK, 

that is a decision they made. 

And again, I am looking at this now, and I am saying, OK, I believe in research and I believe in advisory committees, but I just 

think it is important to understand that, again, a vision without 

funding is a hallucination. So, I just don’t want anyone to get false 

hope from this, that the magnitude of this funding in any way affects the trajectory of this technology; it is just not real. We put in 

a real number based upon what all the experts told us in the utility 

industry to deal with it, it was $200 billion, and it was turned 

down, just absolutely, we don’t want that money, 2009–2010, by 

the way, in this Committee. No, don’t want it. 

So, that is where we are, and again I definitely want to make 

sure that we do the research, but I also want everyone here to understand that there is another vision which is taking place. There 

are 109,000 new clean energy jobs in Massachusetts that have been 

created, most of them over the last decade, 109,000. 

The United States installed 10,000 new megawatts of solar last 

year and 7,000 new megawatts of wind. That is 17,000 new 

megawatts. We now have 89,000 megawatts of wind capacity and 

53,000 megawatts of solar installed in the United States, so that 

is about 140,000 wind and solar megawatts now installed in our 

country and globally, in 2016—in 1 year—globally, 74,000 new 

megawatts of solar and 52,000 new megawatts of wind capacity 

were installed. Overall, renewables now represent 55 percent of all 

new electrical generating capacity over the past 10 years, 55 percent, just so we get it all out here on the table. 

And again, the $200 billion in the Waxman-Markey bill that 

passed the House of Representatives was turned down over here in 

the Senate. Didn’t want the money. 

So, again, I believe in research and am happy to work in a bipartisan fashion to support new technologies for our future low carbon 

economy, but I also want to have everyone understand where this 

whole thing is headed. It is all heading in the direction that now 

they realize they need the money. 

Now they say, oh, is there any way you can help us? We turned 

that down, and now what is left over that you can help us with 

that is kind of a penny on the dollar of what was being offered just 

106 

6 or 7 years ago. And as long as we understand that, then I feel 

better about it. 

So, I guess my concern is, and I would ask you this question, Mr. 

Deich, is they need financing, but we are opening up the Clean Air 

Act here. What is the fear that you might have if we open up the 

Clean Air Act in terms of other changes that might take place? On 

this, I would support it. I just want to make that clear, I do support the bill. I just want to put it in its total context. But I do have 

some apprehension about whether or not the Clean Air Act then 

becomes vulnerable for other purposes in the course of deliberation. 

Can you give me that answer? 

Mr. DEICH. Thank you, Senator. That is something that we are 

very sensitive to. We work closely with environmental groups, as 

well as startups and other investors in this space, and recognize 

that the Clean Air Act has not been amended in nearly 30 years 

at this point. 

And what I think the environmental groups are looking for from 

this Committee is insurance that the bill will move forward in a 

bipartisan way to achieve the spirit that we have heard here at 

this hearing, and not to use it as a way to weaken or otherwise 

erode the foundational environmental law. 

Senator MARKEY. That is good. 

Do we have that commitment, Mr. Chairman? 

Senator BARRASSO. That was in my opening statement. 

Senator MARKEY. Oh, I am sorry. 

Senator BARRASSO. I referred to that, that we are going to move 

forward, Senator Whitehouse and I, in a bipartisan way on not allowing—— 

Senator MARKEY. As Senator Inhofe mentioned over in the Commerce Committee, there are nine of us on two committees, the 

Commerce Committee and this simultaneously, so he and I have 

been running back and forth. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Senator MARKEY. So, thank you for that statement, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. Appreciate your questions. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. Before turning to Senator Inhofe, I would 

point out that the Clean Air Task Force is writing in support of 

this piece of legislation. I am going to introduce that as part of the 

permanent record. Without objection. 

[The referenced information follows:] 

107 


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Senator BARRASSO. Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. I just want, now that this hearing is about to 

be over, to repeat something that I said in my questioning, that it 

is a relief to know that we have come to the point not where we 

were 9 years ago, when the solution was you have to do away with 

fossil fuels, but now we recognize fossil fuels is going to be a part 

of our energy mix, a very important part, most likely, at least for 

the next few years, the same percentage as it has been in the past. 

Now, I know that you folks, the response that you gave on the 

science. I know it is still mixed. You guys know it too. I always 

enjoy using the quote from Richard Lindzen, when he said, ‘‘Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream. If you control carbon, you 

control life.’’ So I would just like to hope that we can get beyond 

this discussion, because it is no longer necessary; we now are going 

to have this as a part of our energy mix. For the record, OK? 

Senator BARRASSO. For the record, absolutely. 

And to follow up on your statement about the percentage being 

the same, what I have been reading is that 20 years from now, 

with the overall need of increased energy—and we need it all—that 

20 years from now we will be using a significant more amount of 

coal than we are right now, planet-wise, so that we need to come 

to the solutions involved here. 

I have a number of letters in support of the legislation I am 

going to ask to be made part of the record, but I do want to thank 

all the witnesses for being here. I appreciate your time and your 

testimony. The record is going to be open for a couple weeks so that 

you may get some written questions from some other members who 

weren’t able to be here, because there are a number of members 

on multiple committees, and everybody can’t be at all committees 

at all times. But I appreciate all of you being here. 

With that, the hearing is ended. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

[An additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

Climate change is a grave threat to our national security, economic security, and 

environmental health. Across Illinois, across our country, and across the globe, we 

are already experiencing the harmful effects of climate change. Growing seasons are 

lengthening, heat waves are increasing, and extreme floods are becoming more frequent and severe. 

The United States must act to prioritize cutting carbon pollution. Fortunately, reducing carbon emissions will not only combat climate change, it holds the potential 

to strengthen our economy, advance new industries, and create new American jobs. 

For example, emerging technological capabilities, such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), will play a critical role in helping our Nation limit carbon 

emissions in a cost effective manner. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s foremost authority 

on climate change research, noted the cost of reducing carbon emissions will be approximately 140 percent higher without CCUS. The bottom line is that failing to 

embrace emerging technologies that facilitate net negative emissions will endanger 

the world’s ability to limit temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius per 

year. 

The bipartisan USE IT Act will help to make sure this does not happen. This important legislation will bolster States such as Illinois, which are leading in CCUS 

research and development. In addition, the bill promotes investment in low carbon 

technology infrastructure, which is necessary to facilitate full adoption of CCUS. I 

look forward to working with my colleagues on this Committee to advance and further improve this promising legislation. 

109 

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Æ 


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