Over the past two years, there has been a noticeable shift in the framing surrounding ocean carbon removal in a Senate hearing room in Washington. The technology used to be mostly discussed in scientific literature and specialized environmental circles. It is a category of methods that includes everything from adding alkaline minerals to seawater to growing enormous amounts of macroalgae to improving the ocean’s natural carbon uptake through various chemical and biological interventions. It increasingly appears in the same rooms as offshore investment, fishery management, and energy policy. The most tangible legislative effort to date to establish a federal framework around that discussion is the ReSCUE Oceans Act, which is being sponsored by House representatives Buddy Carter and Suzanne Bonamici in addition to Senators Brian Schatz and Lisa Murkowski.
The basic idea behind the bill is that the United States shouldn’t use a patchwork of agency programs and ad hoc permits issued case by case to make judgments regarding large-scale ocean carbon removal, including whether to do it, how to test it, and what safeguards to need. NOAA possesses some pertinent power. Research into carbon capture is funded by the Department of Energy. Certain ocean disposal issues fall under the purview of the EPA.
Researchers and businesses attempting to undertake field trials in U.S. seas must traverse a regulatory structure that was not created with ocean carbon removal in mind, and none of these agencies presently operate under a common framework for assessing marine CDR. The ReSCUE Oceans Act aims to address that by establishing a formal code of conduct for field testing, specialized grant programs, and a coordinated government-wide research plan co-chaired by the Department of Energy and NOAA.
Schatz and Murkowski represent significantly different political contexts for this issue, which makes the bipartisan co-sponsorship noteworthy—not because bipartisan ocean legislation is shocking. Ocean climate policy is a tangible local problem rather than an abstract environmental one since Schatz’s electorate in Hawaii experiences the obvious effects of ocean warming and acidity. Murkowski’s Alaska has significant economic interests in offshore resource development, commercial shipping, and marine fishing, all of which have non-positive interactions with marine CDR. The fact that both senators support the same measure indicates that the framing of ocean carbon removal has found language that appeals to those disparate interests, which is actually more difficult than it seems.
The industry is receiving attention from a number of sources. Because several marine CDR techniques, especially ocean alkalinity augmentation, interact with water chemistry in ways that impact shellfish and finfish cultivation, aquaculture operators are keeping a close eye on the situation. Large-scale alkalinity augmentation experiments may have a substantial impact on productivity if they take place in or close to productive aquaculture zones. A government framework with standards for openness and ecological protection gives the aquaculture industry a way to offer feedback prior to testing, as opposed to after. The grant programs are viewed by maritime technology businesses as a possible source of funding for the creation and marketing of marine CDR equipment. The kind of investment that will advance marine CDR from research to deployment, according to climate finance investors, requires regulatory clarity on field testing.
The reaction of the scientific community to the law is more complex than simple enthusiasm. Ecological consequences associated with significant ocean carbon removal are actually unpredictable; this is one area where the truth about what we know is “not enough to be confident.” Enhancement of ocean alkalinity alters carbonate chemistry in ways that may impact marine species that form calcium carbonate shells. There are concerns regarding the effects of large-scale macroalgae farming on local nutrient dynamics and light penetration. By mandating strict monitoring and openness in field trials, the bill’s code of conduct and ecological safeguards are intended to address this ambiguity in an appropriate manner. It won’t be evident until the law passes through discussion and modification whether the safeguards as drafted are sufficient for the variety of methods that may eventually seek authorization under the framework.
A small-scale example of the field trial side of marine CDR can be seen in the EPA-approved Carboniferous experiment in the Gulf of Mexico’s Orca Basin, where 16 metric tons of sugarcane biomass were submerged in an anoxic zone for a multi-year monitoring study. The wider picture, the coordination layer that would oversee numerous such studies across various methods and marine ecosystems, is the focus of the ReSCUE Oceans Act. It would be a step forward from the current state of affairs, which is essentially no federal framework at all, whether it passes this Congress, undergoes substantial amendments, or creates the conceptual framework that guides future legislation even if it fails in its current form.
