During the week of March 10-15, 10 Iowans joined more than 50 landowners and advocates from 8 states who traveled to Washington, DC to urge their members of Congress to cut the wasteful 45Q U.S. federal tax credit program that underpins the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) industry, and associated CO2 pipeline projects.
Iowans met in-person with Senators Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst and Representative Miller-Meeks. They also met with staff from the offices of Representatives Feenstra, Nunn and Hinson.
“As the government is looking to cut wasteful spending and balance the budget, they should look long and hard at the 45Q. The 45Q federal tax credit could cost hundreds of billions of dollars and it is ripe for fraud. There are no checks and balances to ensure these companies are capturing what they say they are capturing,” Jess Mazour, conservation coordinator of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, said. “The 45Q is wasting our tax dollars. The 45Q is stealing our land. The 45Q is threatening our lives.”
Iowa’s Sen. Chuck Grassley sits on the Senate budget and Senate finance committees and plays a big role in protecting Iowa farms from eminent domain and ending 45Q credits
The fly-in event comes just after a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress to repeal the 45Q tax credit, by Reps. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
In addition to the D.C. fly-in, which featured landowners and advocates from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana and North Carolina, organizers are also scheduling in-person meetings In-District with their elected officials, or otherwise planning to attend town halls or other events to make their concerns heard when the lawmakers return home from Washington for March recess.
