Big Oil’s direct air capture plans caught up in Trump spending freeze

Dept. of Energy layoffs sow confusion despite bipartisan support for the technology

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Heirloom Carbon’s direct air capture facility. Photo: Heirloom Carbon.

By Allison Prang

(Allison Prang is a freelance climate journalist based in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO and Canary Media.)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — Big Oil’s ambitions for direct air capture (DAC), one of the most-hyped methods of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere to fight climate change, have been swept up in the Trump administration’s wide-ranging personnel cuts and spending freeze.

That reality has poked a hole in the thinking that DAC could be protected from interference by a second Trump administration because of its history of bipartisan support and because of President Donald Trump’s touting of Big Oil, which favors DAC, during his time on the campaign trail last year.

At least three employees working on carbon removal in the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management were fired earlier this month as part of the administration’s broad layoffs of probationary staff, according to a person familiar with the matter.