Bloomberg Law recently spoke with Environmental partner Sarah Grey about carbon capture legislative activity during the first half of 2024 in “Growing Carbon Capture Industry Spurs States to Set Guardrails.” Grey observed that the 2024 legislative session has been one of the busiest so far, noting that the surge in interest in carbon capture lawmaking is driven in part by the large number of projects hoping to capitalize on federal tax incentives. For instance, Grey explained that carbon capture and sequestration technology, which stores carbon underground instead of releasing it into the air, is now financially viable for companies following the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credit enhancements.
Grey noted that Illinois’s new development and monitoring guidelines for carbon capture and sequestration projects, which include environmental justice protections, monitoring requirements, and a moratorium on carbon dioxide pipeline construction, are the nation’s widest ranging set of carbon capture project requirements. Grey emphasized that long-term stewardship of carbon capture facilities by the state is often considered low-risk given the minimal obligations the state would assume. “In practicality, there’s very little that the state would be doing,” she said. “It’s generally not costly or burdensome.”