Casten Statement on Passage of Climate Change Bills
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Sean Casten (IL-06) released a statement following the President signing H.R. 133, the fiscal year 2021 appropriations omnibus bill that included two important Casten-led bills to address climate change into law.
Provisions from two bills introduced by Rep. Casten (D-IL) – the Clean Industrial Technology Act (CITA) and the Promoting Grid Storage Act (PGSA) were included in the omnibus package. Combined, the two bills authorize nearly $1.4 billion of spending on emission reduction and clean energy research and development over the next five years.
Casten said, "The climate crisis is one of the defining challenges of our time. While research and development efforts alone will not be sufficient to tackle the climate crisis, they are a necessary component as we look to decarbonize the hard-to-decarbonize sectors of our economy and utilize energy storage to support the decarbonization of our electric grid. Expanding access to clean energy via these research and development programs will lower emissions, enhance our nation's energy security, and bolster our economy. I'm proud that these bipartisan bills are signed into law and I will continue to work with my colleagues to pass additional bills to combat climate change."
CITA authorizes $500 million over five years for the Department of Energy (DoE) to establish a research, development, demonstration, and commercial application program for technologies that reduce industrial emissions, such as chemical or cement production. It also creates a technical assistance program, meant to assist entities in promoting the commercial application of industrial emissions reduction technologies.
Grid storage provisions in the package from PGSA provided for $500 million of authorizations over five years for the DoE to create and research and development program to advance energy storage technologies. The package also authorizes $355 million over five years to fund demonstration projects for energy storage systems.