Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions · Notable

Eliminate carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) programs

Partially done

376 12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions

“Eliminate carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) programs. … CCUS programs should be left to the private sector to develop. If the office continues any CCUS research, that research should be focused more on innovative utilization.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    Carbon management was removed from the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management when it became the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office, whose areas of focus are coal, oil and gas, geothermal, the SPR and natural gas regulation. DOE also canceled 24 demonstration awards in May 2025 and 223 awards worth over $7.5 billion in October 2025, many of them carbon-capture and direct-air-capture projects. Partial rather than done: the CCUS demonstration portfolio survives inside the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which still lists the Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program, the Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Programs and the Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

The Quote’s fallback limb — if the office continues any CCUS research, focus it on innovative utilization — is not evidenced either way.

The carbon dioxide sequestration tax credit under section 45Q was retained and enlarged by P.L. 119-21, which cuts the other way; that is a Chapter 22 subject and is not counted here.

Action
eliminate
Object
carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) programs
ID
954