Two top Democratic energy appropriators have accused the Department of Energy (DOE) of violating federal law by diverting millions of dollars intended for carbon capture innovation to instead prop up failing coal-fired power plants.
In a sharply worded letter sent to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) demanded the department immediately halt its plans to obligate $350 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
The lawmakers assert that using these funds to bail out or restart uneconomic coal facilities is a direct violation of the Purpose Statute and the Antideficiency Act.
Carbon Capture Dismissed as an “Afterthought”
The dispute centers on a DOE funding opportunity announced in June 2026 titled “Restoring Reliability: Coal Recommissioning and Modernization.” The $350 million pool was explicitly pulled from two IIJA initiatives: the Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects Program and the Carbon Capture Large-Scale Pilot Projects Program.
According to Kaptur and Murray, these accounts were strictly legislated by Congress to develop transformational emissions-reduction technologies. However, the DOE‘s own project descriptions reveal that the federal cash is being used for routine maintenance, plant overhauls, and restarting dormant coal facilities. Actual carbon capture components are treated as mere footnotes, appearing only as future feasibility studies or engineering designs.
Worse still, congressional notifications from the DOE explicitly state that near-term reliability upgrades would be federally cost-shared “without requiring immediate” carbon capture installation.
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“The Department plainly intends to use carbon capture appropriations for activities it concedes do not include carbon capture,” the lawmakers wrote, calling the move an illegal misuse of public funds that forces American families to subsidize heavily polluting energy.
The conflict follows more than eight months of quiet correspondence between the committees and the DOE, during which the department reportedly failed to provide any valid legal justification for the funding shift. While the DOE quietly amended its public solicitations after the lawmakers first raised the alarm in late 2025, Kaptur and Murray argue those retroactive fixes only confirm that the original plan was legally flawed.
The lawmakers have demanded that Secretary Wright freeze all funding obligations for the selected projects until the department can prove it is acting within the law.
Read more: Senate Democrats Challenge DOE Over CCUS Funds Redirected To Coal
