Congressmen to EPA: Don’t Trust Texas to Run Carbon Storage
- Lawmakers say local regulators fail to protect public health
- State seeks enforcement jurisdiction over carbon storage
This article is for subscribers only.
Two Texas Congressmen are urging the Environmental Protection Agency to reject their state’s effort to oversee underground carbon storage and are calling for an investigation, arguing local regulators can’t be trusted to protect the public.
The EPA currently regulates underground carbon storage across most of the country except in North Dakota and Wyoming, which have been approved to oversee their own efforts. The EPA has minimal staff to regulate subsurface carbon storage, and companies are increasingly interested in capturing carbon and storing it underground due largely to economic incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act.