FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Hannah Story Brown, [email protected]
Treasury Must Continue To Stand Firm Against Industry Fearmongering and Regulatory Capture in Finalizing Clean Hydrogen Guidance
In response to Thursday’s reporting from E&E News on the Energy Department pushing the Treasury Department to align its clean hydrogen tax credit guidance with industrial polluters’ wishlist, the Revolving Door Project released the following statement:
“The Revolving Door Project applauds Treasury’s continued commitment to designing rules that would ensure that green hydrogen is actually green. The preponderance of evidence shows that without such safeguards, electrolytic hydrogen powered by grid electricity would steeply ramp up pollution. Treasury must not let corporations’ bad-faith catastrophizing about the government having standards for how it spends billions of taxpayer dollars cloud the understanding of what’s required to make ‘clean’ hydrogen actually clean.”
“Unfortunately, it appears that Treasury must also stand firm against some of their colleagues at the Energy Department, who seem primarily committed to making the hydrogen industry’s dreams come true by enabling as many companies and regions as possible to get a piece of the hydrogen subsidy pie, regardless of their environmental impact,” said Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Emma Marsano. “If the Energy Department is concerned that ensuring clean hydrogen is clean will undercut the profitability of its selected hydrogen hubs, then perhaps it should have designed its hubs to be more oriented around what we need from industry, and less about what industry needs from us.”
“Treasury’s work is far from done,” said Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Hannah Story Brown. “There are still significant loopholes to close in its final rule, even if pressure from DOE does not result in additional concessions. These include preventing the emissions accounting trickery undergirding ‘renewable’ natural gas, methane ‘offsets’ and so-called responsibly sourced gas from enabling fossil fuel-intensive hydrogen producers to pocket clean hydrogen subsidies. Treasury must keep its eye on the long-term goal here, and prevent this episode from becoming a footnote in the history books about regulatory capture—or yet another instance of the public’s vested interest in curbing climate pollution being drowned out by companies clamoring for an easier buck.”
“As we await the final guidance,” Brown added, “we can’t help but wonder whether any of the people pushing on behalf of industry at DOE will soon be paid by the very companies whose water they are carrying.”
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Image Credit: This photograph taken by DOE photographer Donica Payne during the DOE’s Hydrogen Program Annual Merit Review is in the public domain.