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Carbon capture and sequestration will be permitted on federal lands in the West, thanks to a new policy that is part of the Biden administration’s climate agenda, according to Bloomberg Law (subscription).

What’s happening: The new policy from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, issued late last week, “outlines a way for public lands to be used for site study and carbon dioxide transportation, underground injection, capture and geologic sequestration on the bureau’s land across the West.”

• Until now, the agency had no means of permitting carbon storage projects on its 245 million acres of public land in the West.
• Though no storage projects have yet been permitted, two applications have been filed, in Montana and Wyoming.

Why it’s important: “‘This policy is an important tool to help the BLM combat the climate crisis and supports the Biden–Harris Administration’s goal of reaching net zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050,’ land bureau director Tracy Stone-Manning said in a statement.”

The NAM’s work: The NAM and member companies with deep expertise in CCS collaborated on a comprehensive report, which pulled together key policy recommendations for scaling up CCS deployment to tackle climate change.

Our take: “Manufacturers in America continue to lead the charge on clean energy solutions,” said NAM Vice President of Energy and Resources Policy Rachel Jones. “We can’t address climate change without carbon capture, but hurdles stand in the way of faster progress. Opening public lands for storage and getting that permitted has been one of the hurdles that we identified years ago, so it is exciting to see progress being made.”