Trump’s Attacks on Climate Policy Are Even Hitting Exxon

Earlier this week, the Department of Energy announced that it was clawing back $3.7 billion that its Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations had awarded, during Joe Biden’s administration, to 24 projects. The funds were rescinded, according to the department, after “a thorough and individualized financial review.” On its own, this news isn’t all that remarkable. The Trump administration has been axing climate programs for months, and $3.7 billion is relatively small potatoes compared to the thorough gutting of Biden’s signature achievement, the Inflation Reduction Act, that Republicans are queuing up in their budget bill. 

Some of the biggest awards being cut, however, are for a technology that’s won the support not merely of Biden administration officials but fossil fuel executives and Congressional Republicans too. Carbon capture storage and sequestration, or CCS, uses specialized equipment to remove carbon dioxide from industrial processes, to be either stored indefinitely or utilized for some other purpose, like carbonating soft drinks or getting more oil out of wells. Among climate advocates, carbon capture has been the subject of fierce debate; many of them see it as a way for polluters to carry on with business as usual by promising to someday suck the carbon out of their carbon-intensive industries.