Green Scissors, a coalition of green groups Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the R Street Institute, on Tuesday filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Internal Revenue Service seeking information on the 45Q carbon sequestration tax credit. The coalition has been a vocal opponent of the credit and any efforts to extend or expand it.
“Regarding this tax credit, we would like to request the following records: The total number of credits disbursed per year under Section 4SQ since the provision was established in 2008. The total number of credits disbursed by year for both underground sequestration and enhanced oil recovery, broken down so that the totals can be viewed separately,” the request says.
The 45Q tax credit is worth $20 per ton of CO2 captured for geologic storage and $10 per ton for CO2 captured and used in enhanced oil recovery. The program currently is supposed to expire once 75 million tons of credits have been used, though there has been action in both the Senate and House to make the credit permanent, dropping the 75-million-ton cap and increasing the credit to as much as $35 per ton of carbon captured for utilization and $50 per ton captured using permanent geologic carbon storage.
“Taxpayers have funneled millions of dollars into clean coal and have nothing to show for it,” Autumn Hanna, senior program director at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in a press release. “With attempts to expand or extend wasteful credit looming, it’s time information about the CCS tax credit see the light of day.”
