Kaine Cosponsors Bill Supporting Tax Incentive For Cleaner Coal

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine announced his support for a bill to expand a key tax incentive for the development and use of carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies. This legislation would support a path forward for developing commercially viable cleaner coal energy production, as part of a national strategy to generate more energy with less pollution over time.

“I believe it is in our nation’s interest to make energy production cleaner and less pollution-intensive tomorrow than it is today, and technology innovation holds the key to giving coal a place in a clean energy economy,” said Kaine. “This bill makes the current CCUS tax credit more effective at driving investment in these cleaner coal technologies, which is good for coal communities in Virginia and elsewhere and good for the manufacturing sector that will be building this equipment. This idea has support from the coal industry, organized labor, and environmental groups, showing that when we put our heads together and work on solutions, we can achieve both economic and environmental goals.”

The bill would expand the 45Q tax credit by increasing the dollar amounts per ton of CO2 that is captured rather than emitted as pollution, expanding eligibility to smaller projects and energy-intensive facilities other than power plants, removing a cap on the credit that was too low to drive market decisions, and aligning eligibility to correlate roughly with the recent extensions of renewable electricity tax credits enacted by Congress last year.

Joining Kaine in supporting this legislation are U.S. Senators Heidi Heitkamp, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jon Tester, Brian Schatz and Cory Booker. Last year, Kaine sponsored with Heitkamp the Advanced Clean Coal Technology Investment in Our Nation (ACCTION) Act, which supports a slate of measures to lay a path forward for the development and commercialization of cleaner coal energy technologies.  

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