For immediate release: July 14, 2016
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal support for the long-troubled carbon capture and sequestration plant proposed for Penwell, Texas is set to come to an end when the U.S. Department of Energy’s cooperative agreement with the Texas Clean Energy Project — or TCEP — expires at midnight tonight.
Green Scissors, a coalition of free-market, taxpayer and environmental groups, has repeatedly highlighted the fiscal and environmental dangers of taxpayer subsidies for projects like the TCEP.
After struggling through years of delays and rising costs, a recent special report from the DOE Inspector General’s Office found the project improperly received more than $100 million in taxpayer funds. The DOE reportedly broke its own rules and released project funding ahead of schedule, even though it clearly was flailing and unable to secure private financing.
“It’s well past time to terminate taxpayer funding for this fledgling project,” said Catrina Rorke, director of energy policy at the R Street Institute. “To create the innovative, clean-energy industry of the future, the DOE must refocus on basic, foundational research.”
“It appears that DOE has seen the light and stopped the flow of subsidies to the failing Texas Clean Energy Project. Taxpayers cannot afford to keep throwing good money after bad on clean coal,” said Autumn Hanna, senior program director at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Subsidies for this failed technology have wasted billions of dollars and it is time the subsidies to stop for good.”
“With Southern Co.’s Kemper disaster fresh in the headlines, there is no time like the present to pull the plug on another carbon-capture boondoggle,” said Lukas Ross, climate and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “Every failed project is another nail in the coffin of the ‘clean coal’ myth.”
Even as the midnight deadline for the TCEP looms large and Southern Company’s notorious Kemper project faces further delays, efforts continue in Congress to expand and extend tax credits for capturing CO2 that would primarily benefit these and similar facilities.
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Expert contacts:
Lukas Ross, (202) 222-0724, lross@foe.org
Catrina Rorke, (202) 525-5717, crorke@rstreet.org
Autumn Hanna, (202) 546-8500, autumn@taxpayer.net
Communications contact: Kate Colwell, (202) 222-0744, kcolwell@foe.org