[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 24 (Friday, February 5, 2010)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 6087-6088]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-2744]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 24 / Friday, February 5, 2010 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 6087]]
Memorandum of February 3, 2010
A Comprehensive Federal Strategy on Carbon
Capture and Storage
Memorandum for the Secretary of State[,] the Secretary
of the Treasury[,] the Attorney General[,] the
Secretary of the Interior[,] the Secretary of
Agriculture[,] the Secretary of Commerce[,] the
Secretary of Labor[,] the Secretary of
Transportation[,] the Secretary of Energy[,] the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget[,] the
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency[,]
the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission[,] the Director of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy[, and] the Chair of the Council on
Environmental Quality
For decades, the coal industry has supported quality
high-paying jobs for American workers, and coal has
provided an important domestic source of reliable,
affordable energy. At the same time, coal-fired power
plants are the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse
gas emissions and coal accounts for 40 percent of
global emissions. Charting a path toward clean coal is
essential to achieving my Administration's goals of
providing clean energy, supporting American jobs, and
reducing emissions of carbon pollution. Rapid
commercial development and deployment of clean coal
technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage
(CCS), will help position the United States as a leader
in the global clean energy race.
My Administration is already pursuing a set of concrete
initiatives to speed the commercial development of
safe, affordable, and broadly deployable CCS
technologies. We have made the largest Government
investment in carbon capture and storage of any nation
in history, and these investments are being matched by
private capital. The Department of Energy is conducting
a comprehensive clean coal technology program including
research, development, and demonstration of CCS
technologies and is pursuing important international
cooperative initiatives to spur demonstration and
deployment of CCS. The Environmental Protection Agency
is developing regulations that address the safety,
efficacy, and environmental soundness of injecting and
storing carbon dioxide underground. The Department of
the Interior is assessing, in coordination with the
Department of Energy, the country's geologic capacity
to store carbon dioxide and promoting geological
storage demonstration projects on public lands. All of
this work builds on the firm scientific basis that now
exists for the viability of CCS technology.
To further this work and develop a comprehensive and
coordinated Federal strategy to speed the commercial
development and deployment of clean coal technologies,
I hereby establish an Interagency Task Force on Carbon
Capture and Storage (Task Force). You shall each
designate a senior official from your respective agency
to serve on the Task Force, which shall be Co-Chaired
by the designees from the Department of Energy and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
The Task Force shall develop within 180 days of the
date of this memorandum a proposed plan to overcome the
barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment
of CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing 5 to 10
commercial demonstration projects online by 2016. The
plan should explore incentives for commercial CCS
adoption and address any financial, economic,
technological, legal, institutional, social, or other
barriers to deployment. The Task Force should consider
how best to coordinate existing
[[Page 6088]]
administrative authorities and programs, including
those that build international collaboration on CCS, as
well as identify areas where additional administrative
authority may be necessary. The Co-Chairs shall report
progress periodically to the President through the
Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality.
Ultimately, comprehensive energy and climate
legislation that puts a cap on carbon pollution will
provide the largest incentive for CCS because it will
create stable, long-term, market-based incentives to
channel private investment in low-carbon technologies.
My Administration's new CCS strategy will pave the way
for this energy transition by identifying and removing
barriers to rapid commercial deployment and by
providing greater legal and regulatory clarity. This
will help to spur private investment in CCS in the near
term--investment that will create good jobs and benefit
communities.
This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations. This memorandum is not intended to, and
does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or
procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any
party against the United States, its departments,
agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or
agents, or any other person.
The Secretary of Energy is hereby authorized and
directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal
Register.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, February 3, 2010
[FR Doc. 2010-2744
Filed 2-4-10; 11:15 am]
Billing code 6450-01-P