By Richard Valdmanis

(Reuters] – The proposed tax credit for U.S. Carbon capture and Sequestration projects is being considered by Congress. However, environmentalists fear that it will cause a rise in the use of climate-fighting technology.

Carbon capture and sequestration is a technique that traps carbon dioxide, which causes global warming, from manufacturing facilities. It then stores the CO underground so it doesn’t escape into the atmosphere. It is an integral part of the U.S. government’s plan to decarbonize its economy by 2050, according to President Joe Biden.

Under the proposal, embedded in the Biden administration’s $1.75 trillion spending package, CCS projects would become eligible for an $85 credit for each metric ton of carbon dioxide captured and stored, up from the current $50-per-ton credit that the industry says is too low.

CCS was not included in the tax credit program 45Q. According to the Global CCS Institute (GCS Institute), there are only 12 CCS-operating facilities currently in use.

Clean Air Task Force advocates carbon capture and cheered the idea to increase the credit. It said it expected the change to result in an increase in carbon capture capacity by 13 times in the United States in the middle 2030s.

According to the report, the subsidy would help CCS companies lower their costs and speed up deployment times. This will allow them to expand in other countries looking for ways of reducing emissions.

“These provisions will not only enable decarbonization of domestic industries, but can also multiply emissions reductions abroad,” CATF spokeswoman Lee Beck told Reuters.

According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the existing facilities managed to store just 6.8 Million Tonnes of industrial carbon dioxide underground for 2020. That’s enough to offset emissions from the 1.5 million passenger cars. For enhanced oil recovery (a controversial procedure that injects additional CO2 underground to boost oil fields pressure and push more oil from the ground), the gas was also injected underground.

Some environmental groups expect the credit will have the unintended consequence of extending the lives of big polluters like coal-fired power plants, among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, by giving them a new revenue stream.

To be eligible for credit under the credit proposal industrial facilities must capture at least half of their carbon emissions. The threshold rises to 75% in the case power plants. Green groups believe these thresholds are excessive.

“Such a handout to the fossil industry risks putting a sharp stop to the transition plans of coal-fired utilities, causing them to pursue speculative and expensive carbon capture dreams that are likely never to be realized, to the detriment of the climate and taxpayers,” said the Sierra Club, an environmental group focused on speeding the retirement of coal plants.

Big U.S. utilities Duke Energy AEP and (NYSE:) both have large coal-fired power plants fleets. They told Reuters that they are monitoring the developments in credit but would not comment on whether the increase proposed by the Credit Bureau might lead to them considering CCS projects.