Kelly Hall

East Texas has always thrived by embracing innovation and welcoming new technology, especially when it comes to energy and manufacturing.

From the Gregg County oil boom in 1930 to the invention of the hamburger, East Texas has helped lead the way in bolstering our state’s economic engine and establishing Texas’ impact around the world. As consumers today look for lower-carbon energy and products, our region has a historic opportunity to embrace emerging technologies like carbon capture and storage and lead the way into a new energy frontier.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology was developed in Texas more than 50 years ago. Since the early 1970s, it has been studied by leading government, industry and academic experts, including at the University of Houston and University of Texas, to be a safe and effective method of reducing carbon emissions at large scale.

For East Texans, CCS technology has a number of important advantages that will help cities like Longview continue to grow, create good-paying jobs, and provide the essential products that people around the world rely on. Capturing carbon at its source and storing it permanently underground can be a pragmatic bridge that allows existing industries to reduce unwanted carbon emissions without radically undermining demand for the natural gas and petrochemicals that sustain life in the Piney Woods.

Longview already has the skilled workforce needed to fill thousands of new jobs that could be created to retrofit, operate and maintain new carbon capture and storage facilities.

Although Texas also has abundant renewable energy sources, carbon capture and storage is one of the best ways to ensure our state and nation maintain energy security into the future. Right here in our community, we can see those domestic supply chains in energy, petrochemical and power generation in action — to the great benefit of American workers. We cannot go back to importing the critical minerals that power our entire economy, which are often from unstable parts of the world.

Our unique geology, existing concentration of industrial facilities and deep roots in energy and manufacturing make Texas an ideal location for expanding CCS. Action from federal and state legislators can provide the final ingredient needed to kickstart this technology that could pump almost $60 billion of private investment into our state economy.

Although it did not pass, the Longview Chamber supported legislation this year by state Sen. Robert Nichols that would have updated Texas law to create a competitive marketplace and allow more development of carbon capture and storage in the Lone Star State. Gov. Greg Abbott and our East Texas delegation need to ensure that this legislation is signed into law in 2025.

Texas also has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency to grant the Texas Railroad Commission primary authority to permit and regulate carbon storage wells, a process known as primacy. Where it can take years for the EPA’s bureaucracy to provide permits for wells, the Railroad Commission has the qualified staff and local expertise to inspect and permit wells in a matter of months using the same rigorous EPA guidelines for safety and environmental protection. A comment period allowing the public to weigh in could come later this year.

A lack of support from our federal and state representatives would be especially devastating to East Texas because of our proximity to Louisiana, where legislators in Baton Rouge are pulling out all the stops to embrace carbon capture and storage and become just the third state to gain its primacy designation from the EPA. Unless Texas follows Louisiana’s efforts, new and existing industrial facilities could easily cross state lines to take advantage of Louisiana’s support for the technology.

Previous generations of East Texans didn’t wait for the future; they shaped it. Embracing carbon capture and storage is an investment not just in our economy, but in our people and our community.

Like those before us, it’s time we take bold action on carbon capture and storage to create a blueprint for a more sustainable, resilient future, led by those in East Texas.