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Summary:
Congress is examining potential approaches to reducing manmade contributions to global warming from U.S. sources. One approach is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) -- capturing CO2 at its source (e.g., a power plant) and storing it indefinitely (e.g., underground) to avoid its release to the atmosphere. A common requirement among the various techniques for CCS is a dedicated pipeline network for transporting CO2 from capture sites to storage sites. In the 110th Congress, there has been considerable debate on the capture and sequestration aspects of carbon sequestration, while there has been relatively less focus on transportation. Nonetheless, there is increasing understanding in Congress that a national CCS program could require the construction of a substantial network of interstate CO2 pipelines. S. 2144 and S. 2191 would require the Secretary of Energy to study the feasibility of constructing and operating such a network of pipelines. S. 2323 would require carbon sequestration projects to evaluate the most cost-efficient ways to integrate CO2 sequestration, capture, and transportation. S. 2149 would allow seven-year accelerated depreciation for qualifying CO2 pipelines. P.L. 110-140, signed by President Bush on December 19, 2007, requires the Secretary of the Interior to recommend legislation to clarify the issuance of CO2 pipeline rights-of-way on public land. That CCS and related legislation have been more focused on the capture and storage of CO2 than on its transportation, reflects a perception that transporting CO2 via pipelines does not present a significant barrier to implementing large-scale CCS. Notwithstanding this perception, and even though regional CO2 pipeline networks already operate in the United States for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), developing a more expansive national CO2 pipeline network for CCS could pose numerous new regulatory and economic challenges. There are important unanswered questions about pipeline network requirements, economic regulation, utility cost recovery, regulatory classification of CO2 itself, and pipeline safety. Furthermore, because CO2 pipelines for EOR are already in use today, policy decisions affecting CO2 pipelines take on an urgency that is, perhaps, unrecognized by many. Federal classification of CO2 as both a commodity (by the Bureau of Land Management) and as a pollutant (by the Environmental Protection Agency) could potentially create an immediate conflict which may need to be addressed not only for the sake of future CCS implementation, but also to ensure consistency of future CCS with CO2 pipeline operations today. In addition to these issues, Congress may examine how CO2 pipelines fit into the nation's overall strategies for energy supply and environmental protection. If policy makers encourage continued consumption of fossil fuels under CCS, then the need to foster the other energy options may be diminished -- and vice versa. Thus decisions about CO2 pipeline infrastructure could have consequences for a broader array of energy and environmental policies.
