The Trump administration is fully working to eliminate nearly any government activity or mentioned activities related to climate change, with some notable exceptions. Take the single tax credit in Joe Biden’s iconic climate law, which may have the best chance of surviving from any climate-coded policy.

A provision of the Lower Inflation Act, known as 45Q, expands tax credits for any company willing to capture carbon dioxide. This credit has been in place since George W. Bush's presidency and in the current iteration, it represents billions of dollars in federal incentives. If the Trump administration keeps 45Q intact, that choice would be an unusual vote of confidence for the president to pay for it, a way to resist climate change. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

In the climate world, the politics of this tax credit is also unusual. The oil industry and some climate-rich Democrats in Congress want to keep it. Among its rivals, environmental groups and fanatical Donald Trump supporters of South Dakota and other states that will build carbon capture infrastructure.

It was not until recent years that carbon capture technology became the name of climate solutions. But this is a method that mainly produces more oil. The version is designed to exist on the ground almost forever by storing carbon on the ground, which may make sense when formulated with many other climate policies. But as a standalone measure, carbon capture is starting to look more like a handout for the oil industry.

The climate argument for carbon capture is this: If a ton of carbon is captured from an industrial process (such as a refinery) and then injected into the underground formation, it is theoretically a small amount of carbon added to the atmosphere, where it warms the earth. However, this process is both expensive and unprofitable. The IRA tries to solve the problem with a 45Q, capturing the company's maximum tax credit per ton of carbon dioxide from $50 to $85, or $60 if the purpose is to store it forever, or if the purpose is to produce more oil - this It was the original purpose of Carbon Capture.

In the 1970s, after the OPEC crisis, the oil industry began to find new ways to squeeze out existing wells to make it worth it. One method is to inject carbon dioxide underground, which will act as a solvent, releasing more stubborn oil residues from the more stubborn wells. Today, about 4% of U.S. oil is produced through this technology, and most of the carbon captured by any industry is used to produce more oil and gas.

The price difference in the tax credit is to increase the climate volume version of climate capture. But critics say smaller credit (to enhance oil recovery) is a generous subsidy to the oil industry and ultimately sells it in valuable products. The product potential is huge: The Department of Energy says that if carbon capture is used to maximize oil recovery, the U.S. oil industry can extract the value of the country's current crude oil supply for 38 years.

The 45Q has many admirers: oil and gas giants like ExxonMobil and Shell are all in carbon capture, while Trump’s Home Secretary Doug Burgum is a big fan of the technology. Losing credit (billions of dollars, maybe tens of thousands of dollars that could represent the government’s abandonment of taxes) will hit the nascent industry to “efficiently cut it off on the knee,” Jessie Stolark ), the executive director of the Carbon Capture Alliance told me. And, if credit does survive, it could benefit the oil industry more: Republican senators just introduced a bill to increase tax credits to increase oil recovery to the same level as long-term carbon storage.

The tax credit still has fans among Democrats, who see it as a way for the country to reduce its emissions. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, is the author of the IRA's energy tax program, "strongly supports this credibility and is already working to defend it from Republican attacks," said Ryan, director of communications for the U.S. Senate. The Carey Finance Committee told me. But many environmental groups believe that carbon capture and storage is a wrong solution. Although it is said that in a world where fossil fuel burning continues, carbon capture and storage are said to be the necessary scale to combat climate change. Even for successful projects, successful stories can encounter unexpected problems, namely fixing highly volatile carbon dioxide underground.

The communities in carbon capture projects are also concerned about the security of pipeline expansion. To transport highly pressurized carbon dioxide from where it will be captured, such as ethanol plants and refineries, the country needs to build many new pipelines. Carbon dioxide is an odorless, colorless gas, and at a high enough concentration, it is a suffocation. If the pipe breaks, no one may know for a while. The gas is also heavier than air, so it embraces the ground and rolls downhill, killing anyone’s oxygen. (This happened in 2020, in Satatia, Mississippi; 45 people were hospitalized.)

Karla Lems, a Republican representative from South Dakota, voted for Trump and considered himself a conservative. She is one of the most vocal rivals of the pipeline the company's Summit Carbon Solutions plans to build in her state and four other, bringing carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to storage sites in North Dakota. The company is trying to use the outstanding field to clear its way, which angered LEM. “George Washington said freedom and property rights are inseparable,” she told me, who sponsored a bill that is now passed through the state legislature to ban outstanding areas of carbon projects. (For a while, Summit planned to put it directly on her family farmland, but the company eventually decided to position it on her neighbor's land.

For LEM, the 45Q tax credit is exactly the type of handouts and government inflation that Trump has promised to eliminate. "It seems to me that this is a company that can make a lot of money from this project, and I believe it's just a fear of taxpayers," she told me. See if the Trump administration can see it. "Chase Jensen, organizer of the Dakota Rural Action, is also working to stop the summit pipeline, he told me that Trump would object to the issue because it is Biden's brand climate solution. Those rights will be Transactions so that as they see a company can make money will violate its deepest conservative value.

Jansen said the Summit Pelley Line Battle has been “completely reorganized” in South Dakota. Republican representatives who voted for Pro Pipeline legislation 11 times lost their primary elections for state Legislative and Senate seats. Jensen expects the Trump administration’s stance on 45q to be fantastic about supporters who may want the president to be on par with the company. “People will have to reconcile what is going on,” he said. (Summit said the project would need to be “re-evaluated” if the tax credit was abolished.)

So far, the United States has relatively few carbon dioxide pipelines, at just 5,300 miles, while the gas pipeline is about 3 million miles. But the Department of Energy predicts a significant increase. Without a tax credit, most growth may be impossible. With it, the government may prepare for a new battle that unites climate activists with aggrieved landowners.

In some ways, the politics of the battle seemed familiar: After the Obama administration failed to pass climate legislation in 2010, the climate movement began to relate to conservative landowners in Nebraska and conservative landowners in other states. The person builds a common cause and believes that the oil pipeline Keystone XL will pass. (Some players are now fighting the summit pipeline.) The battle continues throughout the Trump administration and ends only when Biden blocks the project. Now, the Trump administration is also reportedly considering a recovery of the pipeline project. In the first few weeks, the second Trump administration began its attack on climate policy from the first round, looking at the Paris Agreement from a public perspective, depriving climate information from a public perspective, but also taking them further away Promote the prosperity of environmental justice.

45Q presents a challenge: it clearly retains a plan billed for a Biden-era climate solution, or the axe gains something bipartisan support, while the oil industry (which includes Trump’s most important business allies) wants reserve? The administration appears to have selected to protect at least one large Biden-era climate project in Montana, an expansion of a factory that produces sustainable jet fuel after Republican senators urged the White House to release funds. This government may be skeptical of both the big government and climate science, but this ideology may support the right hand.