Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a necessary complement to deep and rapid greenhouse gas emission reductions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and realize the U.S. national target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Carbon removal approaches are diverse — ranging from nature-based to novel, technological solutions — and vary in terms of cost, stage of development and possible scale of deployment. Investing in the development of a diverse portfolio of carbon removal approaches and technologies will help maximize the likelihood that CDR solutions can meet the climate challenge across the United States. Government-wide coordination is needed to lead a cross-cutting CDR research, demonstration and deployment effort grounded in carbon removal’s efficacy, rigorous monitoring and reporting and assessment of environmental and social impacts.

The Removing Emissions to Mend Our Vulnerable Earth Act of 2024, or the REMOVE Act, was reintroduced by Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.), Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Scott Peters (D-C.A.) in the House of Representatives on July 31. The REMOVE Act was originally introduced in 2022, and it matches a Senate version of the bill, introduced the previous year, called the CREATE Act.

The REMOVE Act of 2024 would enact a new Interagency Group on Large-Scale Carbon Management within the White House’s National Science and Technology Council, tasked with forming a strategic government-wide plan to advance carbon removal development. An executive committee would be established within the interagency group, with representatives from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Interagency group responsibilities would include, but would not be limited to:

  • Creating a strategic plan for federal research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of technological CDR.
  • Creating and overseeing working groups.
  • Coordinating RD&D budgets.
  • Identifying cost-effective CDR technologies that are appropriate for large-scale demonstration.
  • Identifying protocols for monitoring, data collection and long-term storage for CDR technologies.
  • Assessing the environmental and social impacts and co-benefits of CDR.

The working groups established under the new interagency group would carry out the research, development and demonstration of CDR technology — a collective effort that would be known as the Carbon Removal Initiative. The groups, which would be subject to review every three years, would focus on four types of CDR:

  • Oceans
  • Terrestrial
  • Geological
  • Technological

Why This Legislation Is Important

The REMOVE Act would activate a whole-of-government approach for developing and deploying carbon removal technologies at an unprecedented scale. This approach will not only invest in the formation of working groups and scaling up of research efforts, but it will also explicitly direct relevant federal agencies to incorporate CDR into their annual budgets. This cross-agency budgetary approach is significant because it shows the federal government's clear financial and personnel investment in the successful deployment of CDR. The committees and working groups proposed in the REMOVE Act would provide the necessary framework for research and development to accelerate climate mitigation efforts in communities across the United States.

The Capitol Building in front of a blue sky
Interagency coordination, spurred by the REMOVE Act, will expand research on carbon removal and help integrate and embed carbon removal priorities in federal agencies’ annual budgets. Photo by Louis Velazquez/Unsplash

The REMOVE Act stands apart from other legislative actions on carbon removal efforts because of its key focus on a whole-of-government, cross-agency approach to financially invest in responsible CDR deployment. The knowledge and resources expected to emerge could lay the groundwork for widespread CDR deployment in the coming decades as its need grows alongside increasing impacts of climate change.