42 U.S.C. § 15910 — Enhanced oil and natural gas production through carbon dioxide injection

(a) Production incentive: (1) Congress found that about two-thirds of the oil originally in place in U.S. fields is still unproduced; that injecting carbon dioxide and similar gases can boost oil and gas recovery; and that capturing and reusing carbon dioxide this way helps make the economy less carbon-intensive. (2) This section's purpose is (A) to promote capturing, moving, and injecting carbon dioxide and other appropriate substances into oil and gas fields for storage, and (B) to promote outer Continental Shelf and onshore federal lease production by offering royalty incentives for using that injection as an enhanced recovery technique.

(b) Suspension of royalties: (1) If the Secretary^* decides that reducing the royalty on a qualifying lease serves the public interest and this section's purpose, the Secretary must start a rulemaking to provide that reduction. (2) The Secretary had to publish an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking within 180 days of August 8, 2005, and finish the rulemaking within 365 days. (3) A lease qualifies if (A) it is an outer Continental Shelf or onshore federal oil and gas lease, (B) it will use this kind of gas injection as an enhanced recovery technique, and (C) the Secretary decides the lease holds oil or gas that likely would not be produced without the royalty cut. (4) The relief is a suspension volume of up to 5,000,000 barrels of oil equivalent per lease, applying to production from the date the proposed rule was published onward. (5) The Secretary may still limit this relief based on market price. (6) This part applies to any qualifying lease issued before, on, or after August 8, 2005.

(c) Demonstration program: The Secretary of Energy must run a competitive grant program funding up to 10 projects in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana, and 1 project^* in the Cook Inlet Basin in Alaska, where oil and gas producers inject carbon dioxide to boost recovery while storing more CO2. The Energy Secretary sets application requirements without needing a separate rulemaking, but every application must at minimum describe the project, estimate the production increase and how long the increase will last, compared with conventional recovery techniques, including water flooding, estimate how much CO2 will be stored, explain how project data will be collected and shared, describe how the project will keep running after federal funding ends, fully break down its costs, state^* which costs federal money will cover, and describe any related secondary or tertiary recovery efforts and how well water flooding worked. An applicant may team up with other public or private partners. In picking projects, the Energy Secretary considers each applicant's past experience with similar work, and gives priority to applications that are likely to maximize production cost-effectively, store meaningful amounts of human-caused carbon dioxide, show the strongest commitment and likelihood of continuing after federal funding ends, and minimize environmental harm. No single applicant can get more than $3,000,000 in federal money, cost-sharing^* is required, construction must start within 2 years of the grant (and no later than December 31, 2010), and funding cannot run longer than 5 years for any one project. The Energy Secretary must make sure lessons learned get shared among participants and other interested people. Within 180 days of August 8, 2005, the Energy Secretary had to publish a request for applications; applications were due within 180 days after that; and, after peer review, the Energy Secretary had to promptly select projects using the criteria above.

(d) Records and inventory: The Secretary of the Interior, through the Bureau of Land Management, must keep records and an inventory of how much carbon dioxide is stored on federal mineral leaseholds.

(e) Authorization of appropriations: Congress may provide whatever funding is needed to carry out this section.