EPA approves 2nd ocean carbon removal test (mCDR)
Renaud de RICHTER
EPA approves ocean carbon removal test, without mentioning climate
By Corbin Hiar | 04/02/2026
EPA is allowing a first-of-its-kind marine carbon dioxide project to move forward, even as the agency strips from its website mentions of how oceans can help mitigate climate change.
The agency issued a permit Friday to Carboniferous, which will allow the Houston-based company to drop up to 16 metric tons of crushed sugarcane stalks with monitoring equipment into a deep, low-oxygen zone some 168 miles southwest of the Louisiana coast. The dumping, in what the Trump administration calls the Gulf of America, could begin in September and last through February 2028. It marks the first time the agency has authorized a company to deposit biomass bricks on the ocean floor.
The authorization comes after EPA took down a Biden-era section of the agency’s website that explained how the ocean could be used to “alleviate certain impacts of climate change” by reflecting sunlight at sea or by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it under the waves.
Federal agencies have frequently stripped mentions of climate change from government websites since President Donald Trump returned to office last year. Trump often incorrectly claims that climate change is a “hoax” and says that he considers efforts to address the problem to be a “scam.”
EPA now has a page explaining how it is "protecting against unproven large-scale geoengineering activities." The page adds that "there are serious concerns about the potential adverse human health and environmental impacts of geoengineering, including marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) or marine solar radiation management (mSRM) techniques."
The Carboniferous permit and EPA's 64-page fact sheet explaining its decision don't mention climate change or why the company is pursuing the carbon removal pilot project.
An EPA spokesperson declined to answer questions about the website changes and what it would need to see to authorize "large-scale" activities. But in the permit issued to Carboniferous, EPA wrote it "does not expect the material placed in the Study Area to cause long-range or long-term effects to human health, the marine environment, or commercial or recreational uses of the ocean or shorelines."
EPA also noted that the startup hopes to expand its dumping operation.
"Any later research, however, while part of Carboniferous, Inc.’s larger research program, is not authorized by or subject to the requirements of this Permit," the agency said.
Carboniferous CEO Dave Jackson declined an interview request and referred POLITICO's E&E News to the company's Tuesday post on LinkedIn.
"We greatly appreciate the EPA's leadership through this detailed application process, and we are excited to continue to work with them closely as our research progresses," the post said.
Jackson and Carboniferous board member Robert Morris founded the carbon removal company in 2021. The startup is named after the Carboniferous Period, a time some 300 million years ago in which huge swamp forests were buried and later transformed into coal deposits.
Carboniferous has received support from the Grantham Foundation and Stripe, a climate-focused payments processing firm, according to the financial data firm PitchBook.
Marine carbon removal represents a small subset of the still tiny carbon removal industry. But it has bipartisan support in Congress from lawmakers representing coastal states.
In February, Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) and Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) introduced legislation that would increase investment in marine carbon removal research. Carter has previously pitched the development of ocean climate tech as a way to continue burning fossil fuels, a view rejected by most scientists.
EPA has only approved one previous permit for marine carbon dioxide removal. It was received by the nonprofit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution last April for a research project that is releasing small amounts of a pink-dyed sodium hydroxide solution into the Gulf of Maine.
Environmental group asks EPA to block climate test
By Corbin Hiar | 04/08/2026
https://www.eenews.net/articles/environmental-group-asks-epa-to-block-climate-test/An environmental group is urging the Trump administration to prevent a climate technology startup from using the oceans to limit global warming.
Friends of the Earth argued Monday that President Donald Trump’s EPA had failed to adequately consider the “reckless and irreversible ecological damage” that could result from a first-of-its-kind marine carbon dioxide removal pilot project planned by Carboniferous.
The group is asking EPA to withdraw, modify or, at the very least, hold a public hearing on a permit it issued last month to the startup. EPA’s authorization in March didn’t mention climate change or explain why Carboniferous is pursuing its biomass dumping test in the Gulf of Mexico.
A public hearing is the only way to “ensure a robust, transparent decision making process that rigorously examines the scientific merit of the research and incorporates expert analysis that, to date, has been arbitrarily ignored,” Friends of the Earth said in the request.
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