Washington, D.C. – Following UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ call for an international reduction in methane emissions, Representatives Kevin Mullin (CA-15), Andrea Salinas (OR-06), and Carol Miller (WV-01) introduced the bipartisan Methane Removal and Innovation Act, legislation to accelerate the development of technologies that capture methane directly from the atmosphere and ensure American leadership in this emerging field.
Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and is responsible for nearly 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Yet current efforts focus largely on preventing new emissions rather than addressing methane already in the atmosphere. The Methane Removal and Innovation Act would establish a Department of Energy (DOE) program to accelerate the development and deployment of methane removal technologies.
“Cutting methane emissions is essential, but we also need innovative solutions to address methane that is already in our atmosphere,” said Rep. Mullin. “This critical legislation will help accelerate next-generation technologies that capture and repurpose methane while strengthening American leadership in a growing industry. By investing in research and innovation today, we can support public-private partnerships that advance practical solutions to meet the urgency of the climate crisis.”
“Methane is a powerful driver of climate change, but stopping leaks from pipelines and energy facilities is only half the battle. We also need new technology that pulls methane straight out of the atmosphere,” said Rep. Salinas. “This bill directs the Department of Energy to invest in research, development, and commercialization so American companies can lead the way with the next generation of methane capture technology. Because Oregon is a leader in climate technology, this legislation will protect our climate while supporting good jobs in clean energy innovation right here at home.”
“Methane reduction is about strengthening American energy security and making sure our resources are used responsibly and efficiently. In the past, I have worked on efforts to address methane emissions and support responsible energy production, and I am happy to be a part of this legislation that builds on that foundation. This bill ensures the Department of Energy invests in innovative technologies that can capture methane both at the source and directly from the atmosphere,” said Rep. Miller.
To secure American leadership, the Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act directs the DOE to establish a research, development, and commercialization program for methane capture technologies. Specifically, it would:
“Methane has driven roughly 30% of global warming since preindustrial times, which is why we need to pursue every credible tool to address it,” said Megan Melamed, Program Director for Methane Removal at Spark Climate Solutions. “Aggressive emission reductions are essential and will result in near-term benefits. But hard-to-abate sources, warming-induced emissions, and other possible feedbacks will persist. This means we must assess every potential tool—including atmospheric methane removal. This bill would mobilize American science and innovation to do exactly that. We thank Representatives Mullin, Salinas, and Miller for their leadership.”
“The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act (MRRIA) is an important step toward a robust, publicly funded research environment that explores a variety of climate response strategies,” said Sikina Jinnah, Professor of Environmental Studies and Associate Director of the Center for Reimagining Leadership at UC Santa Cruz. “As the 2024 National Academies report on methane removal stated, and as MRRIA champions, a useful knowledge base must consider technology and humans in concert.’ By integrating ethics and social science into research now, MRRIA will help align innovation with public priorities while methane removal technologies are still nascent.”
“The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act is a critical step toward advancing industries harnessing nature’s ability to capture methane and transform it into valuable resources,” said Josh Silverman, CEO of Windfall Bio. “By accelerating innovation in methane capture technologies and specifically highlighting biological capture, this legislation provides a practical path to reducing emissions while strengthening our agricultural and industrial economies. We thank Representatives Mullin, Salinas, and Miller for their leadership on this important issue.”
“Methane pollution is a major contributor to near-term warming, and the Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act offers a practical way to better understand possible solutions,” said Will Sawyer, Founder and CEO of Resolute Methane. “This bill would support the science and technology needed to evaluate methane removal approaches carefully and transparently. We are grateful to Representatives Mullin, Salinas, and Miller for championing this legislation.”
“Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, and removing it represents a largely untapped opportunity,” said Rachel Smith, Policy Director at Cascade Climate. “The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act takes an important step forward by directing the Department of Energy to coordinate rigorous research on this emerging technology. We commend Rep. Mullin, Rep. Salinas, and Rep. Miller for championing this commonsense investment in American science and competitiveness.”
“While reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be our number-one priority, we need more research into removals as a solution for residual emissions, including rising natural sources,” said Noah Deich, Co-Founder and Senior Advisor at Carbon180. “MRRIA accelerates essential research into methane—a super-pollutant that has been largely overlooked in the removals conversation. If enacted, this legislation would make important strides in broadening the removals framework to be inclusive of innovation around greenhouse gases—giving us the knowledge to ensure our policy strategy is as scientifically robust as possible.”
“Methane removal is a critical emerging technology, and one where the United States has a potent opportunity to establish itself as a global leader” said Dr. Hannah Safford, Associate Director of Climate and Environment at the Federation of American Scientists. “The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act will push the frontier of U.S. scientific discovery, protect American agriculture and human health from dangerous ground-level ozone, and tackle an underappreciated but escalating driver of climate threats. The Federation of American Scientists applauds Representatives Mullin, Salinas, and Miller for their work on this important issue.”
“The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act is an important policy measure to confront the serious threat posed by rising levels of atmospheric methane,” said Wil Burns, Co-Director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal. “The proposed legislation can move forward critical research and innovation.”
“Methane is responsible for roughly a third of current anthropogenic warming, yet the science of actively removing it from the atmosphere remains in its infancy,” said Alex Turner, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Science at the University of Washington. “The Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act directly addresses this gap by funding the research needed to determine whether these approaches can be scaled responsibly.”
“By advancing the Methane Removal Research and Innovation Act, Congress is taking an important step to implement the National Academies’ recommendations on methane removal and organize the multidisciplinary research needed to advance this emerging field,” said Mingyi Wang, Assistant Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. “Methane is a powerful driver of near-term climate change, but evaluating removal approaches requires careful, evidence-based research. This legislation will support the laboratory studies, field observations, and numerical modeling needed to evaluate feasibility, risks and benefits, and inform responsible decision-making. We thank Representatives Mullin, Salinas, and Miller for their leadership on this important issue.”
“The USA and global populations need alternative technologies to manage and transform atmospheric methane for health stewardship (through reduced air pollution), for atmospheric chemical stability, for protection against the effects of atmospheric warming, and for converting low-level methane into a resource for productive uses,” said Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, Professor at the School of Life Sciences and the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. “This bill is timely and urgently needed.”
Read the full bill text here.
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Hi Ken (and Mark)--Not that I'm convinced it can be meaningfully and economically accomplished, but just to be a bit of a contrarian, what do we do about the prospect of increasing methane emissions from permafrost thaw that seem likely to be large and inevitable? I agree that the methane lifetime is short, but methane is a very strong GHG in its short time in the atmosphere (using GWP-100 as a metric seriously hides methane's true effect of warming early and so bringing on positive feedbacks and tipping points sooner). Fine to make the point that controlling emissions directly due to human influences is essential and cost-effective, etc., but what about the indirect natural emissions that increasingly rapid and inevitable further warming is causing?
And as a side point, I would also note that to really evaluate whether it could be meaningfully done, DOE will need to have the climate research program that they have been dismantling--would be nice if even the discussion of this bill actually made clear to members that overall research on our changing climate and world is really essential.
Mike MacCracken
Why aren’t they also discussing Nitrous Oxide, a more potent GHG than Methane due to its centuries long lifetime in the atmosphere?
N2O has many biological sources and sinks that could be managed!
T. J. Goreau, 1982, Biogeochemistry of nitrous oxide, Ph.D. thesis, Harvard
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| Parameter | Operational Specification |
|---|---|
| System Footprint | 30m Wide × 30m Long (900 m² Sweep Area) |
| Primary Catchment Enclosure | Heavy-Duty Polymer Vacuum Sheet (Hydrodynamic Membrane) |
| Harvesting Mechanism | Continuous Low-Pressure Cavitation & Effervescence Gas Stripping |
| Primary Traction Devices | Dual 4m Diameter × 30m Length Outward-Displacement Helical Screw Tanks |
| Locomotion Mode | Contra-rotation (Forward/Reverse); Co-rotation (Lateral Crab-Walking) |
| Power Plant | Direct Methane Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) — 60% Net Electrical Efficiency |
| Refrigeration Architecture | Continuous Flow Closed-Loop Vapor Compression Plenum (Systemic COP: 3.0) |
| Peak Ice Production | ≈ 1,080 m³ of solid ice structural mass per hour (at 1 m/s cruise) |
| Primary Carbon Exhaust Sink | High-Surface-Area Sparger Aqueous Bicarbonate Plume (HCO₃⁻) |
| System Processing State | 100% Continuous-Flow (No Hydrate Batch Storage or Pistons) |

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Best regards
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Dan
Would you have time to ask Prof Johnson about the large methane sink represented by NOx produced by tropical deep convective clouds? These clouds produce a lot of lightning, which produces NOx (various nitrogen oxides, but not N2O). NOx strongly enhances atmospheric OH radical production.
Some helpful tables from ChatGPT:
Methane sink | Approximate share of total global sink |
OH radicals in the troposphere | ~85–90% |
Soil uptake by methanotrophic bacteria | ~4–7% |
Cl radicals (mainly marine boundary layer and troposphere) | ~1–5% |
Stratospheric oxidation (OH, Cl, O(¹D)) | ~3–8% |
Cloud-water and metal-catalyzed oxidation | <<1% (probably negligible globally) |
Approximate global OH budget
Process | Contribution to maintaining global OH |
O₃ photolysis + H₂O (primary production) | ~40–60% |
NOx-mediated recycling | ~30–50% |
HOx recycling without NOx | ~5–15% |
Ozonolysis of alkenes and biogenic VOCs | ~5–15% |
Cloud/aqueous/metal chemistry | <1–2% |
Sources of the NOx supporting OH
Source | Approximate Share of NOx |
Human combustion | ~50–60% |
Lightning | ~10–20% |
Soil microbes | ~10–20% |
Biomass burning | ~10% |
Other natural sources | few % |
BTW Once again, the IMO is working to accelerate global warming, this time by curbing NOx emissions from shipping. It would be good if that got a mention too.
Clive
From: carbondiox...@googlegroups.com <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Dan Miller
Sent: 28 June 2026 15:58
To: Michael Hayes <electro...@gmail.com>; Chris Van Arsdale <cvana...@google.com>; GRETCHEN & RON LARSON <rongre...@comcast.net>; Greg Rau <gr...@ucsc.edu>; Renaud de RICHTER <renaud.d...@gmail.com>; CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com <CarbonDiox...@googlegroups.com> <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Michael MacCracken <mmac...@comcast.net>; Ken Caldeira <kcal...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [CDR] Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Encourage Methane Removal
I have a very timely Climate Chat episode on methane eradication with Matthew S. Johnson (University of Copenhagen) that premiers today at 10am PT: We discuss both point source and atmospheric eradication. You can listen to the program starting at 10am today or anytime afterwards.
And it is eradication, not removal. Removal implies that you put it somewhere out of the way. But since methane is ~120X more powerful than CO2 at warming while it’s in the atmosphere, the way you get rid of it, is by converting it to H2O and CO2. You destroy it.
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Dan
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ALL chemicals and aerosols that react with OH radicals will affect the rate of methane oxidation!
OH radicals are the general mechanisms that cleans the atmosphere of nearly all pollutants, so changes in ANY of them, but especially in NOx, will affect the rate of methane oxidation, since the lifetime of OH radicals is so short.
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On 28/06/2026 18:48 BST Dan Miller <d...@rodagroup.com> wrote:You can contact him yourself. You can find his contact information here: