The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) approved a resolution calling for capturing more carbon emissions at power plants for enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
The Feb. 17 action came after NARUC’s Energy Resources and the Environment Committee passed Kentucky Public Service Commission Chairman James W. Gardner’s resolution a day earlier during NARUC’s 2016 Winter Meeting in Washington, DC.
It supports states’ efforts to develop financing and other policies encouraging cost-effective use of CO2 from power plants for EOR; and urges Congress and the Obama administration to support legislation and budget measures that provide assistance to development and deployment of cost-effective carbon capture/EOR technology.
Doing so would increase national energy security, reduce US dependence on unstable overseas crude oil suppliers, and create high-quality jobs, the resolution said.
“Bipartisan legislation has been introduced previously in Congress to reform and provide for additional tax credits for CO2 capture for use in EOR,” it noted. “These credits would pay for themselves over time through increased tax revenue due to increased oil production, without even considering the other job and economic benefits of EOR.”
Gardner said, “This resolution underscores the need for the federal government to recognize the benefits of carbon capture for use in [EOR] and its essential role in enabling long-term, continued use of coal in an environmentally sound manner.”
The National Enhanced Oil Recovery Initiative (NEORI) applauded NARUC’s action, which it said was the third by a major group of state officials. Comparable resolutions were approved by the Western Governors Association in June 2015 and governors and state legislators on the Southern States Energy Board in September, NEORI said.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
