Climate Legislation Is Needed for Carbon Capture to Be Viable,
U.S. Says Climate-change legislation to force reductions in
greenhouse gases is a necessary ingredient to the widespread
deployment of a process to store carbon pollution from coal
plants, a U.S. task force said today in a report. High costs, a
lack of clear regulations and uncertainty about legal liability
must be resolved for carbon capture to be widely deployed,
according to the report released by 14 federal agencies. “The
lack of comprehensive climate-change legislation is the key
barrier” to carbon capture and sequestration, according to the
report’s executive summary. “Without a carbon price and
appropriate financial incentives for new technologies, there is
no stable framework for investment in low-carbon technologies.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has
abandoned efforts to pass legislation that would cut carbon-
dioxide emissions, through a cap-and-trade system, after failing
to find 60 votes needed to advance the m