Sponsors (3)
The bill concentrates federal support, coordination, and standard-setting to accelerate research, monitoring, and market development for marine carbon removal—potentially creating jobs and credible measurement—while increasing open-ended federal spending and risking ecological harms, reduced transparency, and market incentives that may not ensure real emissions reductions.
Scientists, researchers, and coastal communities will get coordinated federal funding, grants, and monitoring (NASA/NOAA/NSF direction) to study, pilot, and oversee marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR), increasing research capacity and evidence for policy.
Researchers, companies, and state/local governments gain standardized definitions, measurements, and benchmarks for mCDR that improve comparability, accelerate technology validation, and help create credible market products.
Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, and Native Hawaiian organizations are explicitly recognized for consultation and data consent, strengthening tribal participation, protecting tribal data, and enhancing incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge.
Taxpayers face potentially open-ended federal costs because multiple program elements are authorized at "such sums as necessary" for FY2027–FY2031 without fixed appropriations or caps.
Coastal communities and marine ecosystems risk harm if mCDR deployment or field trials are accelerated before long-term ecological impacts are fully understood, potentially causing local environmental and economic damage.
Voluntary marine carbon credits enabled by the bill could let private buyers claim offsets without reducing their own emissions and shift verification burdens to markets, risking weak or inconsistent integrity of claimed removals.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 24, 2026 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress February 24, 2026
Creates a NOAA-led federal program and an interagency effort to fund, coordinate, and standardize research, monitoring, and demonstration of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). It sets definitions, requires data sharing and tribal data protections, funds competitive grants and agency work (NSF, NASA, NIST coordination), and directs monitoring, site inventories, and community engagement for field research. Establishes program rules (codes of conduct, advisory boards, reassessments), an interagency working group with specific deliverables and timelines, and authorization of appropriations for FY2027–FY2031 to support research, standards, measurements, and use of federal assets — while preserving existing maritime laws and requiring tribal consent protections for certain data and sites.