Washington, D.C.  – Yesterday while discussing with the media a memo that outlines his demands for a potential budget reconciliation bill, Senator Joe Manchin directed his remarks to focus on climate and energy aspects of the pending legislation. He stated: “I’d love to have carbon capture, but we don’t have the technology because we really haven’t gotten to that point. And it’s so darn expensive that it makes it almost impossible.”

In response, Food & Water Watch Policy Director Mitch Jones issued the following statement:

“It’s rare that we agree with Senator Manchin, but when he slips up and tells the truth, we’ll back him on it. Carbon capture doesn’t work. It never has, and if it did, it would indeed be so expensive as to be pointless. Carbon capture is a faulty concept being pushed by the fossil fuel industry in order to encourage more public handouts to keep its polluting business running. Manchin and many of his fellow Democrats have consistently touted carbon capture and other phony technology schemes as justification for continuing to pump massive funding and tax breaks to oil and gas interests. This shocking moment of truth from Manchin should do as much to debunk the logic of continuing to prop up fossil fuels as anything clean energy advocates like us have been screaming for years.”

House Democrats’ $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act fails to remove massive existing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, including:

• A subsidy enacted in 1916 (Sections 263(c) and 291) allowing many fossil fuel producers to deduct 100 percent of many costs associated with extraction;
• A subsidy enacted in 1926 (Sections 611 through 613A and 291) that allows many producers to deduct 15 percent of gross income annually, which often results in a deduction greater than the value of actual assets;
• A tax credit for “carbon capture and sequestration” (Section 45Q), an unrealized, faulty technological process that is falsely characterized by the industry as a solution to toxic climate emissions.

Contact: Seth Gladstone – [email protected]