Letter from DAC Council Members to Senators Manchin and Barrasso

Senator Joe Manchin
Chairman
Senate Energy Committee
Washington, DC 20515

Senator John Barrasso
Ranking Member
Senate Energy Committee
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Manchin and Ranking Member Barrasso,

Thank you for both of your leadership advancing the development of carbon dioxide Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies. As members of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s DAC Advisory Council,¹ we support the inclusion of federal investment in demonstration and deployment of DAC technologies in the upcoming infrastructure package. In particular, we support the DAC provisions included in the legislative proposal discussed at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on June 24th, 2021.

We have witnessed first-hand the progress made by DAC technologies in the past decade and recognize that this is an important moment, where demonstration and deployment of clean energy-smart technologies must be scaled by several orders of magnitude in order to address climate change. As we describe in our recent “Case for DAC” white paper series, in addition to offering climate benefits, investments in DAC technologies and projects can serve to bolster the U.S. economy and spur job growth.²

A robust federal effort that accelerates DAC demonstration and deployment this decade is needed. The recent draft of the energy infrastructure legislative proposal has several provisions that will provide crucial support for DAC, including:

• The creation of multiple large-scale regional DAC hubs that will scale capacity, establish domestic supply chains, and drive down costs.
• Full funding for the DAC technology prize competition authorized in the Energy Act of 2020, which will drive cost declines with early- and middle-stage innovations on DAC.
• Multiple investments in carbon utilization, storage, and transport necessary to deploy DAC, including the SCALE Act and the CO2 Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (CIFIA) program

These provisions will help reach the goal our Council has set forth of enabling at least 7 million tons of DAC capacity in the U.S. ³ We strongly urge you and your colleagues to include these provisions in a bipartisan infrastructure package this year.

We share your opinion that infrastructure is the backbone of our economy and that clean energy leadership is needed. Increased federal investment in DAC demonstration and deployment as part of a bipartisan infrastructure package will not only ensure the build out of needed clean energy infrastructure but also grow jobs, support domestic manufacturing bases, and potentially unlock a new industrial opportunity for U.S. companies.

Sincerely,

Roxanne Brow
International Vice President at Large, United Steelworkers

Carlos Curbelo
Former U.S. Congressman from Florida

Byron Dorgan
Former U.S. Senator from North Dakota

John Delaney
Former U.S. Congressman from Maryland

Haley Barbour
Former Governor of Mississippi and BGR Group Founding Partner

Marty Durbin
President, Global Energy Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Nicholas Eisenberger
Senior Advisor, Global Thermostat

Christoph Gebald
Co-Founder and Co- CEO, Climeworks

Steve Oldham
CEO, Carbon Engineering

Richard Jackson
President, Onshore Resources and Carbon Management, Occidental

Michael J. Graff,
Executive Vice President & Executive Committee Member, Air Liquide Group
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc.

Chris Hessler
Founding Partner, AJW Inc.

David Owens
Former Executive Vice President, Edison Electric Institute

Jason Grumet
President, Bipartisan Policy Center

Cc: Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Members of the “G21” bipartisan infrastructure group