CLIMATE: Barrasso, Bingaman reintroduce CCS prize bill (04/08/2011) Katie Howell, E&E reporter Sens. John Barrasso and Jeff Bingaman yesterday reintroduced their bipartisan measure that would award monetary prizes to researchers who figure out a way to suck carbon dioxide directly from the air.
Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, and Bingaman, the New Mexico Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, first introduced the carbon capture and storage (CCS) legislation last Congress, where it stalled in committee. But Bingaman in recent weeks has targeted CCS as an area with potential for bipartisan cooperation on the committee. Several Republicans, including Barrasso, are co-sponsors of CCS legislation he floated last week (E&ENews PM, April 1). And yesterday, Bob Simon, the committee's Democratic chief of staff, said, "the whole area of carbon capture and storage is one that is ripe for bipartisan cooperation in the Senate." "Frankly, if we can make sure, if we can demonstrate that you can economically capture and store carbon dioxide, you dramatically increase the range of technologies you can call clean energy technologies," Simon said yesterday at an event in Washington, D.C. Barrasso and Bingaman's latest bill (S. 757), which is also co-sponsored by Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, would encourage development of technology to capture CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently sequester it by establishing a federal commission within the Energy Department to award prizes to scientists and researchers making headway in the field. The commission members, who would be appointed by the president, would be climate scientists, physicists, chemists, engineers, business managers and economists. Prizes would be awarded to innovators who design technology to mop up CO2 and permanently store it. "This bill taps into American ingenuity and innovation," Barrasso said in a statement. "This will increase America's energy security by ensuring the long-term viability of coal and other sources of traditional energy. Our bill provides the technology to eliminate excess carbon in the atmosphere without eliminating jobs in our communities." But despite Bingaman's optimism about moving CCS legislation this Congress, he said earlier this week that no decisions had been made about when the committee would take up the CCS measures. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
