Sponsors (3)
The bill channels federal money, standards, and interagency coordination to accelerate marine carbon removal research and market readiness—potentially creating jobs, better data, and clearer markets—while raising taxpayer costs and environmental, equity, and resource‑allocation risks for coastal communities, researchers, and competing science priorities.
Scientists, researchers, and coastal communities will receive sustained federal funding for mCDR research, monitoring, and field trials that improve scientific understanding, inform safer deployment, and can create local research and technical jobs.
Buyers, regulators, and developers will get standardized units, measurement/monitoring/reporting best practices, benchmark materials, and public data that increase transparency and comparability in marine carbon removal credits and tests.
Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, and Native Hawaiian organizations will have mandated consultation, funded community engagement, and control over their data to protect tribal interests and participation in mCDR planning.
Taxpayers could face increased and open‑ended federal spending to fund mCDR research, monitoring, and programs without guaranteed commercial or climate outcomes.
Coastal communities, subsistence users, and fisheries could experience environmental harms from mCDR field trials or larger deployments that damage ecosystems, fisheries, or local livelihoods if mitigation or oversight fails.
Tribes, coastal residents, and small local stakeholders could be disadvantaged if the bill enables commodification of ocean carbon that favors private buyers and developers over local communities and equity interests.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a NOAA-led federal program and interagency research effort to study, test, standardize, and evaluate marine carbon dioxide removal with grants, monitoring, and standards development.
Creates a federal program led by NOAA and coordinated across agencies to fund, study, and test marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) approaches, set measurement and verification practices, and develop technical standards. It directs competitive grants and interagency research (NSF, NASA, NIST) to evaluate efficacy, environmental and social impacts, and commercialization pathways while requiring meaningful engagement with coastal communities and consultation with Tribes as appropriate. Requires the program to start quickly (NOAA must establish it within 90 days), integrate traditional ecological knowledge, follow federal research security rules, preserve existing maritime legal authorities, and support development of standardized materials, models, and measurements to validate mCDR performance for voluntary carbon markets and broader adoption.
Introduced February 24, 2026 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress February 24, 2026