WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators John Barrasso (R-WY) and Jeff Bingaman, (D-NM), reintroduced a bi-partisan bill focusing on clean air technology. The Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology Act (S. 757) creates a prize system to encourage innovative technologies that will remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere and permanently sequester it.
“This bill taps into American ingenuity and innovation,” said Barrasso. “It makes sense that we explore alternative approaches for removing and permanently sequestering excess carbon dioxide. 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.”
“Innovation is the source of our greatest competitive strength,” said Bingaman. “A federal prize could help inspire the discovery of solutions to some of the technical challenges of carbon capture and geologic sequestration technologies that we face. Senator Barrasso’s bill makes sense, and I’m pleased to co-sponsor it.”
Senator Bingaman is Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where the bill has been referred. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) is also a co-sponsor of the bill.
Background
The program would be established by a federal commission under the Department of Energy. Commission members, appointed by the President, would be comprised of physicists, chemists, engineers, business managers and economists.
Awards will go to public and private entities that design technology to remove and permanently sequester carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.
Once the technology is developed, the United States would share the intellectual property rights with the inventor.
Historically, prizes have been used to spur all types of technological development to solve problems. For example, Charles Lindbergh was competing for the Orteig Prize, when he flew in the Spirit of St. Louis, non-stop from New York to Paris in 1927.
The Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology Act was initially introduced during the 111th Congress.
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