For Release: Thursday, July 28, 2005
Contact: David Gillies: 202-225-5661
COSTELLO CLEAN COAL PROVISIONS INCLUDED IN FINAL ENERGY BILL
"Centers of Excellence" for coal research are created
Washington - The House of Representatives today approved H.R. 6, the final version of national energy policy legislation that includes several clean coal initiatives authored by U.S. Congressman Jerry Costello (D-IL). The bill also provides important tax incentives for the commercialization of clean coal technologies and will double ethanol production.
"It has been a long journey to this point, but the end result is very good for Illinois and for the future of coal use in this country," said Costello. "We have put in place a very strong research program to develop the most advanced clean coal technologies and have committed the federal government to help get them out of the lab and into production. This is a long-term process, but this bill puts us on a path to meet our future energy needs."
The Costello clean coal provisions:
- Authorize $1.8 billion over nine years for research and demonstration projects in advanced clean coal technologies with the goal of reaching emission levels comparable with natural gas.
- Mandate that at least 60% of funding for fossil energy research and development goes toward coal research.
- Create national centers for coal research, one of which Costello wants located at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC).
- Authorize $75 million to create a program to develop advanced technologies to remove carbon dioxide from coal emissions and permanently sequester it below ground. This is one of the technologies that the FutureGen project is designed to use.
Importantly for Illinois farmers, the national Renewable Fuel Standard for ethanol will reach 7.5 billion gallons annually by 2012, up from 3.7 billion gallons this year. Illinois ranks second in corn production and currently produces over 800 million gallons of ethanol per year.
###
