Goods imported into the UK from countries with a lower or no carbon price will face a levy by 2027.

By Paul A. Davies, Michael D. Green, and James Bee

On 18 December 2023, the UK government announced a proposal for a new carbon border adjustment mechanism (UK CBAM). The announcement follows extensive consultation earlier this year on possible measures to mitigate carbon leakage risks and aims to support the UK’s decarbonisation efforts.

The UK has made a number of decarbonisation commitments including reaching net zero by 2050. These commitments to decarbonise can be undermined by “carbon leakage”, in which production of goods and associated emissions move from a jurisdiction with more ambitious climate policies (which add costs to carbon-intensive processes) to another jurisdiction with less ambitious policies, resulting in an overall negative impact on the carbon intensity of the processes/goods themselves. The UK CBAM (or other form of carbon tax) seeks to address this issue by aiming to put a fair price on the carbon emitted during the production of certain carbon-intensive goods entering the UK.

We discuss key regulatory trends and strategies to consider when pursing US transmission and interconnection opportunities.

By Tyler Brown, Marc T. Campopiano, and Jennifer K. Roy

Renewable energy production has grown at an exponential clip over the past decade, with continued strong expansion expected because of declining costs, numerous governmental incentives, and long-term decarbonization policies. This trend has driven a tremendous demand for new transmission infrastructure in the US and globally, yet new transmission lines often take years to develop due to regulatory hurdles and litigation challenges.

An unprecedented investment in transmission will be needed over upcoming decades to keep pace with demand and meet decarbonization goals. Companies and investors will need to factor into their strategies these key regulatory trends when pursuing US and global transmission and generator interconnection opportunities.

Three funding opportunity announcements and a finance program provide significant investments to support carbon capture and sequestration.

By Jennifer Roy, Janice Schneider, Joshua Bledsoe, and Brett Frazer

Demand for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to meet global and national climate goals is on the rise. The International Energy Agency (IEA) 2020 World Energy Outlook suggests that CCS could contribute approximately 15% of cumulative emissions reductions worldwide by 2070.[1] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Working Group III Report further identifies the need for carbon dioxide (CO2) removal technology and to build a carbon management industry to achieve global net zero goals.[2] In view of the growing interest in CCS, and as discussed in this Latham blog post, the Biden Administration has announced ambitious decarbonization goals that prominently feature efforts to deploy CCS in the US.[3]

In September and October 2022, the US Department of Energy (DOE) released three funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) and one new finance program that, cumulatively, will provide an additional $7 billion for CCS infrastructure. Two of the FOAs feature grant funding for front-end engineering design (FEED) studies, and the final FOA and finance program feature a combination of grants and loans. Funding for these programs was appropriated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which President Biden signed into law in November 2021. The IIJA delivers approximately $75.8 billion for energy and minerals-related research, demonstration, technology deployment, and incentives, including $12.2 billion administered by DOE and dedicated to CCS technology and infrastructure.

This blog post summarizes the three FOAs and the new finance program.

The guidance sends a signal that carbon capture and sequestration remains a focus of the current administration’s decarbonization efforts.

By Janice Schneider, Nikki Buffa, Josh Bledsoe, Nathaniel Glynn, and Kevin Homrighausen

On June 8, 2022, the US Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued new guidance[1] that outlines the use of federal public lands for geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2). This widely anticipated guidance updates previous interim guidance on exploration and site characterization for CO2 sequestration that BLM issued in 2012.