Exxon Likely Claimed $190 Million In Carbon Capture Tax Credits, Then Sold CO2 To Pump More Oil
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Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, is the rarest of policy breeds: a climate change solution with bipartisan support. Republicans promote the technology as a central piece of any GOP climate plan. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has endorsed it, too. But the most significant policy support for the technology is the tax credit, known as 45Q, for capturing emissions. The emissions, in almost all cases, are then used to increase oil production. Now, as the Trump administration is finalizing rules for an expanded version of the credit, advocates say the administration has capitulated to industry lobbying led by Exxon that would weaken oversight of the process. In June, the IRS proposed that companies be allowed to avoid being regulated by the EPA, a step that could also allow companies to avoid publicly disclosing details of their carbon capture operations.
Environmental advocates say there is good reason to require rigorous oversight: One depleted oil field that has received carbon dioxide from Exxon's Wyoming facility, for example, repeatedly spewed unknown volumes of the gas to the surface, most likely through old oil wells. In 2016, a nearby school was forced to close after carbon dioxide was detected at dangerous levels inside the school. Supporters of the carbon capture credit, including some environmental groups, say it will help the technology gain widespread commercial support. But critics say the credit amounts to a subsidy for oil companies masquerading as climate policy, throwing a lifeline to an industry struggling amid a historic crash in oil prices that only leads to producing more oil.
"This is how the oil industry continues to win," said John Noël, a senior climate campaigner with Greenpeace USA who has been following the credit for years. "They get in the weeds, they have access and influence that the normal public doesn't, and they're able to manipulate the tax process and the regulatory process and manipulate it in their favor. And that's been happening since the first oil well." Exxon spokesman Casey Norton would not say whether the company had made claims under the carbon capture credit or answer other questions about the tax incentive. He pointed to various research efforts the company is involved in, adding that "ExxonMobil is the world-leader in carbon capture, sequestering more carbon in the last 20 years than any other company."
Because the IRS does not disclose the names of companies that claim the credit, it is impossible to know whether Exxon has claimed it or how much it may have claimed. But Noël, as well as other advocates and Congressional staff members, said they believed that Exxon had claimed a large share, perhaps the largest, of the $1 billion awarded under the credit over the past decade. In April, the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration said that nearly $900 million worth of those credits did not comply with EPA requirements, because the companies failed to submit monitoring plans.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25092020/exxon-carbon-capture