Green Scissors, a coalition of the nongovernmental organizations Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the R Street Institute, again Tuesday called for the rejection of legislation extending and expanding the 45Q carbon sequestration tax credit. In a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-Mich.), the group called the tax credit “harmful to our environment and wasteful to taxpayers.”
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 due 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. The Senate version of the bill would also open the credit up for industrial sources in addition to power generators, which are currently the only eligible sources.
