A bi-partisan Congressional duo is pushing for a massive federal land grab through new carbon capture and storage (CCS) legislation in the U.S. House.

Utah Republican Blake Moore joins forces with California Democrat Jim Costa to sell out private property owners nationwide with the BECCS Advancement Commission Act of 2025.

BECCS stands for “Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage,” and the legislation builds on Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act, adding additional funding for CCS to the billions included in that massive financial debacle.

H.R. 5597 also proposes adding another layer of bureaucracy to our already bloated federal government. If passed, it will establish a BECCS Advancement Commission in the Department of Agriculture, a nine- or 10-member board comprised of career politicians, lobbyists, and subsidy recipients. (So much for DOGE.)

To date, no other Congressmen have added their names as cosponsors. But the bill has earned plenty of accolades from those who stand to reap billions in federal largess. Some of them include:

1. Arbor Energy, a carbon capture tech company founded in 2022, cozy with Microsoft, and which has already received $7 million in federal funding.
2. Elimini, an even more recent startup launched in late 2024 and specializing in BECCS technology, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom’s renewable energy giant Drax Group. In other words, it’s a conduit for American tax dollars to a foreign-owned company.
3. The Carbon Business Council (CBC) is a non-profit association whose members hail from CCS circles. It is involved in Elon Musk’s XPRIZE which, at $100 million, is touted as the “largest incentive prize in history,” and aims to fund development of carbon dioxide removal technology. CBC’s executive director, Ben Rubin, is a frequent speaker at United Nations climate conferences and at the World Economic Forum.

“BECCS is a novel technology uniquely positioned to promote wildfire mitigation, bolster economic development in rural America, and deliver much-needed baseload power as energy demand for data centers and artificial intelligence continues to grow,” stumped Moore as he introduced the bill. “This legislation will help us harness new technology to reduce wildfire risks, create good-paying jobs and keep rural economies like ours growing,” Costa predictably parroted.

Wildfire mitigation is a common excuse for gobbling up private land for CCS. Supposedly, man-made global warming is setting forests ablaze to the point of eco-Armageddon. For decades, The New American has repeatedly exposed this hoax; senior editor William F. Jasper notes that “forest mismanagement, not global warming, has created the conditions for the recurring raging infernos: forests clogged with huge fuel loads of underbrush, along with bug-infested dead and dying trees.”

As for economic incentives, carbon capture has consistently failed to meet targets while companies are awarded taxpayer dollars — self-reporting on the honor system alone — to the tune of $85 per ton captured. Moreover, CCS is proven to be net carbon additive because of the massive amount of energy consumption the technology requires.

Indeed, CCS technology amounts to a classic boondoggle, both unnecessary and ineffective — unless you’re a land speculator masquerading as a bureaucrat with a moral cause. Then it’s very useful.