Sponsors (2)
Official title: Support marine carbon dioxide removal activities, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 25, 2026 by Brian Emanuel Schatz · Last progress February 25, 2026
The bill channels sustained federal funding, standards, and coordination to accelerate marine carbon removal science and potential markets while shifting costs to taxpayers, creating regulatory complexity, and raising real environmental and equity risks for coastal and Indigenous communities.
Coastal communities, researchers, and the broader public will get sustained federal funding and centralized coordination for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) research and field trials, accelerating scientific knowledge and program development.
Researchers, developers, and regulators will benefit from standardized measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) frameworks, public access to non‑proprietary data, and consistent protocols that improve transparency, credibility, and environmental oversight.
Tribal, Indigenous, Native Hawaiian, and coastal communities will gain clearer engagement rights, mandated consultation and minimum engagement funding (e.g., $10,000 per grant) intended to increase community input and provide workforce/education benefits tied to research areas.
All taxpayers face increased federal spending from open‑ended appropriations for 2027–2031 to support research, monitoring, and program administration with uncertain returns.
Coastal, tribal, and rural communities may be exposed to ecological and subsistence risks because accelerating field trials and experimental mCDR deployments carry uncertain environmental impacts despite monitoring requirements.
Defining tradable marine carbon removal credits and promoting mCDR could prioritize marketized offsets and technological fixes over direct emissions reductions or conservation, shifting economic benefits toward investors and away from community-led approaches.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Directs NOAA, DOE, NSF, NASA, and NIST to run coordinated research, field trials, monitoring, and standards development for marine carbon dioxide removal, with grant funding and community/Tribal engagement.
Establishes a coordinated federal research and standards effort to study, test, monitor, and validate marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). It directs NOAA (within Commerce) to stand up a Program within 90 days to fund and oversee mCDR research and field trials, requires DOE, NSF, NASA, and NIST to run complementary research, training, monitoring, and standards activities, and mandates engagement with affected coastal communities and Indigenous/Tribal organizations. The bill focuses on developing empirical evidence on mCDR efficacy and risks, creating monitoring/verification best practices, protecting coastal and marine ecosystems, integrating traditional ecological knowledge where practicable, and producing interoperable data and technical standards to support research, commercialization pathways, and potential voluntary carbon-market credits.