Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, is warning that tax provisions in the recently approved economic bailout law could undermine EPA's efforts to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration. In an Oct. 2 letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Dingell notes that Section 115 of the bailout law, H.R. 1424, "provides that the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the [EPA Administrator], shall establish regulations for determining adequate security measures for" carbon sequestration - a practice by which energy producers capture CO2 and store it underground in order to prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. The letter is available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2 for details. The regulations called for in the bailout law are meant to establish conditions under which sequestration facilities can qualify for a $20 per ton tax credit, which Dingell says the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates to be worth $1,119 billion over 10 years. The tax credit provisions were inserted by the Senate as it moved to adopt to the bailout law after it initially failed in the House Sept. 29. The Senate's move ended ongoing House-Senate negotiations over the tax credit provisions, which Dingell notes left "limited (if any) opportunity to address concerns of Members of the House." The provisions were later approved by the House without any changes from the Senate language.
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