Sometimes, we skip right over the life stories of guests. Othertimes, it's everything. Today, it's everything.
Returning to the show after several years is Carbon180's Executive Director, Erin Burns.
Erin grew up in a coal mining family in West Virginia, got her start in Joe Manchin's Senate office, and has had a long and impactful career in carbon removal.
Today, Erin (re)explains how the budgeting process works in the United States federal government and how the appropriations process intersects with it. What is the difference, and where can voters get involved?
This is truly an improvised masterclass in civics education. Listen up for what you missed in high school, and how it will impact the future of carbon removal.
This Episode's Sponsors
Listen to the RCC episode with Lisett Luik from Arbonics
Resources
Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change
"The Appropriations Process: A Brief Overview", a CRS Product
Carbon180's Carbon Removal Funding Tracker
"The Ghost of Tom Joad" by Bruce Springsteen
"Which Side Are You On?" by Pete Seeger
"There is Power in a Union" by Utah Phillips (originally by Joe Hill)
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello, this is your host, Ross Kenyon. I’m doing something that I have not done before. I feel like I did a long time ago, but it’s been a while. But in trying to make this show financially sustainable, I was able to pick up a couple of sponsors. It would do me a great favor if you could please listen and learn more about each of them, since they offer something to different parts of our audience that I think you will care about. These two sponsors — and thank you from the bottom of my heart for becoming sponsors — are Offstream and Arbonics.
Arbonics is a project developer. They’re the ones that are actually pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it, and they are doing it through trees. You know, trees have had a difficult time within carbon removal. You should go listen to the show that I did with Lisett Luik from Arbonics. We did a show probably about six weeks or eight weeks ago, and we talked about how the trajectory of trees, afforestation, reforestation within carbon removal has played out, how that impacts whether we are storing biological material in anoxic environments for carbon removal purposes alone.
Arbonics is doing something a little bit differently. Europe has over 14 million hectares of underused land, which, you know, abandoned farmland, it’s low-quality pasture. Not a lot is happening there. A lot of it once was forest. It was cleared a long time ago for farming, but the global food supply and better yields elsewhere has meant that a lot of this land is just underutilized and we haven’t quite figured out what to do with it yet. So Arbonics uses technology to help landowners find this land and then restore it back into carbon-removing, biodiverse forest.
And that last point is really important, because a lot of forestry that takes place is a monoculture, which is maybe solving one problem, but it’s not solving the overall polycrisis, ecological crisis. So Arbonics pursues that way of going to market in order to offer corporates high-quality, data-backed European carbon removal credits, helping companies reach their sustainability goals with maximum trust. So go listen to that conversation I had with Lisett. I’ll put a link in the show notes if you want some more.
And if you’re thinking about this in terms of a cycle here, Offstream would be a service provider to Arbonics. Offstream is there to make carbon compliance simple for project developers. If you’re listening, if you work at a carbon removal company or a company producing other types of carbon assets, the data portion of this is super challenging. If you’re listening and you haven’t had to read through a methodology or any registry documentation, you’ll probably live longer than the rest of us who have. It’s non-trivial. It’s difficult, and that’s not to say that it shouldn’t be difficult. Much of this should be, so we make sure that quality is actually taking place when carbon is removed or avoided or anything like that.
And Offstream exists to make it easier for project developers to not get stuck on the level of data. Varsha Ramesh Walsh, Offstream CEO, she likens their platform to being a GPS for your carbon credit and your MRV plans. It’s guiding you through the jungle of certifications and compliance. Oh, I love that. That’s such a fun, visual way of putting it. This is a world where you can develop and iterate on your project LCAs in minutes, not weeks, where you can focus on doing the important work of growing your business, scaling carbon removal, generating more credits, without having to necessarily hire more employees.
This is really an important time in carbon removal where minimizing headcount may be necessary for a number of companies to stay alive and keep going. And Offstream is here to help you do that. They’re here to help you with your LCA needs. If you’re listening, you’re a project developer, you know one, and they are having persistent migraines from paperwork, like, go over to useoffstream.com. Tell them that Offstream can help them handle the quote-unquote boring bits while they can focus on saving the planet. Offstream, because paperwork shouldn’t be a full-time job. Cracks me up.
Thank you, Offstream and Arbonics, for sponsoring Reversing Climate Change. I’m really appreciative that you’re able to help me do this. It means a lot. If you’re listening to this and you’d like to sponsor Reversing Climate Change, feel free to send me an email. I’ll put the email in the show notes too, and let’s talk. And okay, now I’m going into the show proper, the intro. Here it is. And thank you again for listening.
Hello, and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m a carbon removal entrepreneur. I’ve been that way for the better part of a decade, and I am the host of Reversing Climate Change. I’m really happy to invite an alumna back onto the show, Erin Burns. Erin is the executive director of Carbon180. We talk a lot about her background in the show. It’s actually a big part of the podcast, so you’ll hear about how she worked in the Senate for Joe Manchin. She comes from a background and a family in West Virginia that has deep ties to labor and to coal production. It makes sense that she was staffed for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Public Lands Subcommittee. All of these things make perfect sense.
Erin recently appeared on the CDR Policy Scoop, and it really caught my attention because she said something that was counterintuitive, or maybe at least a little less represented within carbon removal right now, which is that the carbon removal industry shouldn’t throw away everything that we care about in order to appeal to the existing political climate with the change in administration. And that may in fact be an error. We can still believe in a future where we have a grip on climate change without having to do all of the same work pretending we no longer care about that.
It probably wouldn’t work, because Erin knows we’re on record caring about climate. This show is called Reversing Climate Change, and I think it would look rather weak to give up all of one’s values in order to appeal to the current regime. I don’t know that that’s going to work in any case, and it may in fact just be disingenuous to try. I think that’s a good point. But tactically, how one speaks about this, the kinds of projects one tries to initiate and see through, could change during this time. And that is a tactical decision. That is not a decision that requires one to change one’s deeply held values for why one is working in carbon removal.
I think that perspective that I attribute to being in DC for about a decade at this point and worked in the halls of power, those are lessons that you learn from experience. And I like to think that I’m getting to the point in my career where I have some wisdom. I hope so. I think I do. There are things upon which I suspect I may be wise, although saying that out loud decreases your chances of actually being wise, I think. But it is interesting to note just how important experience is here in knowing what is a big deal, what isn’t, what’s temporary, what’s not, and how to think about the trajectory that is longer than a few years. It’s the trajectory that might last decades, and that’s something that comes from working for two digits of time rather than one in a particular field.
I thank Erin for teaching me so much. She does a great job just explaining how the appropriations process works. So if you slept through civics, this is a great chance to learn how government actually works and where there are possibilities for activism and how political decisions get made. And before we start the show, one quick plug is if you could please become a paid subscriber to Reversing Climate Change, it would be a great help to me. It helps me grow the show. I’m working on a couple new things right now, trying to get some more sponsorships, trying to just help the show grow and be self-sustaining. And it’s only $5 a month. So if you love what I’m doing here, you want to be a part of it, please — on Spotify or whatever platform you use, you can often become a paid subscriber as well. It’s $5 a month. I’ll put the link at the top of the show notes. Thanks so much for listening. And here’s my discussion with Erin Burns.
Hello, welcome. Good to have you here.
Erin Burns: Thanks for having me, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: We — it was great to — we caught up a little bit before this and, yeah, I got to talk about our shared love of Pittsburgh.
Erin Burns: That’s right, yeah.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t know if the audience would have needed 10 minutes on Pittsburgh ephemera, memorabilia, talking about Primanti Brothers and fries on everything then. But this is at least going to give me an excuse to retweet, or, like, at least in the response to this episode, tweet the Pittsburgh’s Number One YouTube video. So that alone is a victory. I love that. I always love weird regional cities that are maybe — Pittsburgh is not past its prime, and obviously, like, the education and medical system there are world class and get celebrated quite highly. But these places that maybe everyone focuses on the bigger cities that we all know about — I always love going to the cities that don’t quite make that list, because they always have such strong pride about cities like that.
Erin Burns: No, I totally agree. I mean, I think it’s like a — it’s a sense of history and, like, pride in that regional history, and one that’s, like, not always celebrated. So I think I’m just, like, that intense, you know, from southern West Virginia. So I love regional pride, clearly. I can’t even say West Virginia. It’s like, no, it’s like this particular part of West Virginia. So I think it’s great. And Pittsburgh is — yeah, it is. Two thumbs up for Pittsburgh.
Ross Kenyon: I agree. And I’ve had so many forks in my life, travel opportunities, where it’d be like, well, you could go to Chicago, but you could also go to Cincinnati at this time because you have a week to kill. And be like, you know what? I’ll have lots of reasons to go to Chicago. Cincinnati is going to have fewer reasons. I’m going to Cincinnati and I’ll have fun in Over-the-Rhine and I’ll party there. And I’ve had good times in Cincinnati as a result. Like, choose the weirder option. If you’re young and you’re listening and you have travel opportunities, choose the weird thing. You’ll go back to London, you’ll go back to Berlin. It’ll be there. Go somewhere weirder.
Erin Burns: I agree. You know, I’m not personally the biggest Skyline Chili fan, but there’s some great stuff in Cincinnati. And, like — no, we used to do, when I went to college, when I was in college in Pittsburgh, we used to just get in the car and drive, and you see those road signs that are the sort of, like, brown, like, some historical thing happened here, and we would just have no plans. We would just have, like, a sleeping bag in the trunk, and you just, like, drive and find all those weird little bits. You know, it’s like there’s a lot of amazing stuff, and it’s free also, to help, you know. You don’t even pay for your campground. You just — so when you are a cash-strapped college student, you know, you just pack hot dogs from the gas station and a sleeping bag in your trunk.
Ross Kenyon: Erin, I didn’t know we were also connected by our former dirtbag status.
Erin Burns: That’s a — listen, dirtbag. Listen, I — oh my God. And when I — so when I first moved to DC, I moved here without a job. So Ross and I were talking about how I’m the least educated person at Carbon180. And part of this is, like, you know, people have these, like, life plans, that I moved here without a job, that I, in true, like, hipster dirtbag fashion, worked at — I was a hostess at this restaurant called Meridian Pint in Columbia Heights here in Washington, DC, which is just like the outfit, everything. It was just, like, peak, you know, 2011, 2012, like, hipster dirtbag thing going on. And a place called the Red Derby, if there happens to be any DC sort of, like, dirtbag hipsters from way back when listening, will appreciate that call-out. But yeah, so it’s, like, definitely share that.
Ross Kenyon: Wow, I was at bars at the same time in DC, but I was at Madam’s Organ and Codmother. But not actually that far, actually. So there’s, like, an alternate reality where we were at the same bar.
Erin Burns: Not even — no, I feel like those are for people who are, like, young but employed, versus mine were, like, the, like, you know, all of my food — I worked at the Columbia Heights farmers market on the weekends, and that’s, like, literally all my food was either the, like, 10 for $10 frozen bags of vegetables — a giant, you know, with a giant card you get, like, $10 a piece for frozen vegetables — or things that I bartered for at the Columbia Heights farmers market. Cause the farm I worked for, they didn’t want to, like, carry all the stuff back. So I’d be able to, like, go barter for, like, eggs and be like, you want two pints of strawberries for [unclear] duck eggs?
Ross Kenyon: That’s great. I wish — you have such an amazing career rise from — you’re telling me about your growing up in West Virginia all the way to prominent in carbon removal. How?
Erin Burns: Oh my God, right? A lot of — a lot of dumb luck, it kind of seems like, now that I’m telling a story. Honestly, I moved to DC without a plan and did maybe the most West Virginia thing possible, which is go ask Joe Manchin for a job. That I was just like, that’s how you get a job. He was like — Joe Manchin, he’ll give you a job. He did, actually. I got an unpaid internship while I was also working these other jobs, and then a position opened up as a staff assistant. And then the first opening on the legislative team a few months later was on the energy team, and I ended up doing that.
And honestly, it was just, I think some of it is that luck of timing, of I was working on things like point source carbon capture and I was really interested in it. So in West Virginia offices and Dem offices at the time — back when those were a thing, Democratic West Virginia representatives — you always, the same staffer did energy and labor, because so much of the labor work is focused on, like, heavy industry, like United Mine Workers, steel workers. So you’re doing, like, the energy and labor policy. And it was definitely how I kind of, like, grew up thinking about this, like, you know, my papaw’s scrip that he was paid, you know, in his company town instead of — if you’re not familiar with this, scrip was, so, coal mines owned and operated scrip.
Ross Kenyon: Yes, but I don’t know what — what do you say, like, pepaw? Like, what relationship is this?
Erin Burns: That’s pepaw. What did you say, papaw? Oh, is this, like, I’m really hillbilly? Just, like —
Ross Kenyon: Father’s father? [unclear] How old are you, Erin?
Erin Burns: I’m from southern West Virginia and, shockingly, I’m only in my 30s. I just sound like —
Ross Kenyon: Like, papa is never — papa might be a grandpa, or, I’m sorry, might be a dad. Papaw is always like a grandfather, a great-grandfather. That’s wild.
Erin Burns: Anyways, but you pay in scrip, right? So, like, instead of US money. My daughter, my four-year-old, has learned about coal mining and is, and I quote, going to continue her papaw’s work in the mines. I think she hasn’t gathered what hard work it is, or the sort of economic opportunities there. Like, I don’t know how many coal mining jobs are going to be in West Virginia. But anyways, you know, for me, it had always been tied together like that. It had always been my conception of, like, the energy space was, like, this piece around what it meant to be a worker in it. Like, it wasn’t this academic perspective. It wasn’t this sort of, like, understanding of the climate energy space. It was like, oh, I grew up around, like, coal production. I grew up around coal miners. I grew up around, like, the sort of economic [unclear], those sort of conditions for working in it.
And it was interesting to then work on point source carbon capture in the Senate. And this was, you know, sort of like 2011 to 2015 was when I was in the Senate. And it was a weird moment for something like coal, because we had the shale revolution. And so coal had been on this sort of slow decline — some of it, you know, people starting to raise, you know, climate getting a little traction at the federal level, mostly as a talking point, not a lot of policy, though. This was sort of the Clean Power Plan era under the Obama administration. And but then we had the shale revolution and that cheap natural gas, all of a sudden means, you know, coal, like, especially eastern coal and West Virginia, like, these huge impacts. And a lot of the work I did was actually around shoring up pension obligations for mine workers, these unionized mine workers who are potentially losing — there’s consolidation amongst the coal companies and this whole issue with them spinning off their liabilities.
And all that to say that I think what was exciting to me about carbon capture — because that’s kind of a crazy phrase to say sometimes, like, you know — what was exciting about carbon capture is that it to me was always in this broader context of the labor force and the economy of these places. And even talking about places like Pittsburgh, it’s like that sense of history with things like this and, like, what does it mean to have a future, not necessarily for coal, but for coal communities? And so I was excited because there were only a handful of people working on carbon capture, like, writ large, really. Like, it wasn’t like a super popular thing to work on, but it felt exciting to come in and say, you know, I see the value in something like this. I can see how it can go wrong. And, like, what if we think about it in a very different way?
And I think that was — I hit the timing right on some of the carbon management stuff, where it was a handful of people. You know, I learned what carbon removal was because Noah Deich came into the Senate office in 2015, when he had just started what is now Carbon180, and was like, this is direct air capture. And he was not the, like, you know, very legitimate Noah of today in terms of, like, you know, all this public credibility. He was the latest guy from Oakland coming in on his Allbirds being like, direct air capture. And I’m like, well, what, like, okay, maybe. And luckily, you know, I listened to his very smart ideas and we worked on some early legislation together.
So I think again, a lot of it was that combination of, like, having hit, you know — I, in my career, I’ve seen not just carbon management, but, like, climate go from something that felt like so niche and, you know, at the top of nobody’s list, to we saw in the Biden administration all of a sudden it’s, like, a huge priority for the White House. And, like, that had never happened really before. Even under the Obama administration there were efforts on it, but it wasn’t the number one priority, right? And there wasn’t this sort of, like, political will and capital in places like Congress to really move stuff on climate at that time.
And so anyways, I was very — I feel like in some ways it’s, like, that sort of dirtbag West Virginia, all of these different pieces informed, and that, like, sort of not coming at it from a super traditional, like, you know, I did my own master’s in energy modeling or whatever. You know, clearly I’m just reinforcing that stereotype or that idea of me as the least educated person, since I can’t even think of the right sort of master’s program here. But, you know, I think it is that, like, value of coming at this from a very real-world perspective, and that prioritization of, like, what are these real-world impacts? How are these impacting people?
And I think it’s also shaped for me how we thought about this at Carbon180, where I think, you know, the work we do on things like equity and justice — I understand intellectually why a lot of that can come across as very partisan. And for me, thinking about this, it’s just, like, the practical, like, you’re just sort of, like, ignoring the very real-world implications of the work that we do, or the potential real benefits and all of these really amazing opportunities, if you’re not talking about things like equity and justice. It’s not about a sort of partisan ideology.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a different kind of Democrat, too, I’m thinking of. It’s organized labor. It’s October Sky, basically. You’re coming from coal mines in West Virginia. You have some Homer Hickam running through your intellectual heritage, I think. Are you?
Erin Burns: Nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Oh yeah, I love that — that movie and book. As a kid, I think I read that thing, like, 100 times.
Ross Kenyon: That’s different from what is typically represented inside of carbon removal. It’s not a surprise that that’s been part of Carbon180’s DNA, since I associate Carbon180’s work on equity and justice as very much leading that conversation. Which is one of the reasons why your comments within the CDR Policy Scoop show were so interesting to me, because many people right now are freaking out saying that we need to downplay some of the more progressive elements within carbon removal. And you had a very nice counterpoint that actually maybe that is the wrong turn. I don’t want to mischaracterize what you said. Maybe you can restate.
Erin Burns: No, it was a counterpoint. I disagree, for sure. Sebastian, I disagree on this.
Ross Kenyon: That’s fine. Are you allowed to do that, Sebastian? Is she allowed to do that? Okay, anyways.
Erin Burns: Yes, I think it’s so important. Look, carbon removal, we’ve come a long way in the past four years, and I think in a lot of ways the sector’s matured under a very pro-climate, progressive administration that was sort of making sure that people had, you know, they had to at least talk about equity and justice in their work. We started that work before this administration. Like, we started that work when we very first started thinking about policy. And it’s because if you think about what it takes to build these long-term, these durable political coalitions, which we will absolutely need in carbon removal — we need lots of public policy in carbon removal. It’s going to cost a lot of money to scale carbon removal in the United States. It’s going to bring a lot of opportunity. But you need people, Democrats, Republicans, to vote for these policies for decades, right?
And I think that sense of longevity is important for us to hold on to, even if it’s something that we haven’t had as a field firsthand. And what I see sometimes is this sense of fear that the progress that we’ve made is going to be really quickly taken away. And so what can we do to stop that? What can we immediately do to sort of make a case to a very different set of political actors that what we do is valuable? And realizing that we’ve built an entire — you know, so much of the advocacy has been focused on convincing a very different set of people with a very different set of priorities, and we haven’t been prepared to.
You know, I do think that’s a lesson, to say political winds are going to — that the political winds will change over decades. And what does it mean to create that durability in the case for carbon removal, the coalitions for carbon removal? And so that’s not to say we shouldn’t be talking about the economic benefits of carbon removal. It is to say that then, we’re sort of — the panic you feel now, you’re going to feel again if you just start to go and say this isn’t about climate and we’re not setting up an ecosystem for climate. We need to have this sense of longevity to say we’re doing this over decades. You’re not fooling anybody. Carbon removal is for climate. That is why you do carbon removal. Nobody’s going to think that you’re not doing it for climate, and you’re not going to trick anybody by saying this isn’t about climate. It’s called carbon removal. Like, it’s sort of in the name, y’all.
You can talk about things like direct air capture to enhanced oil recovery, and we know that’s not the long game. We know that’s a short shelf life, if it’s valuable at all, or if we should be doing it at all. And, you know, sure, there are reasons to preserve biodiversity, reasons, things like that, you know, on the sort of soils and things like that. That’s not why we — you know, that’s not the primary cause. It’s, again, we called it the carbon removal field for a reason. So I think it’s sort of — all it’s going to do is make you seem disingenuous. And instead, you need to understand what it means to build champions in the long run, so that it’s not this question of — there are some people who we’re never going to convince. But if we’re looking at things like, what do we need to do to protect things like the direct air capture hubs program, then we need to look at, these have been bipartisan champions, right?
And we haven’t won bipartisan champions by acting like we don’t care about climate. It’s saying that we care about climate, and we also see these opportunities in places like Texas and Louisiana and Wyoming and California, where climate may or may not be your primary motivation, but you’re also going to see those job benefits, you know, integration with existing infrastructure. You’re going to see potential uses around, you know, not just saline storage of CO2 in the near term, but opportunities around other use cases for the captured CO2, right? Let’s learn more about potential air quality benefits, right? If we’re going to put these in industrial places, in places that have hosted these industrial projects, are there additional air quality benefits?
So I think, to me, it’s that sense of you’re not going to fool anybody by not talking about climate. You know, also, like, we’re all on the record. I don’t know, it’s just not that — like, you know, we’re not going to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes. And I just don’t think that that is about what’s important. I think a lot of times, again, when we talk about something like carbon removal, we can talk in these very broad — you know, progressives, like, care about climate change, conservatives don’t. I don’t know that that lack of nuance is particularly useful for a place like carbon removal. It is much deeper than that, right? Like, it is — when we get into why people across the political spectrum supported something like carbon removal, it is much more nuanced, right?
And a lot of that does tend — this gets back to this question of things like equity and justice being partisan or nonpartisan. Look, I think it’s a moral imperative that we care about this. Like, why else are we — you know, we’re scaling carbon removal to address climate change, and we care about climate change because it harms people. Like, this is about a people-centered approach. And if you want members of Congress to vote for public policy to support your thing, you better be able to show how the communities and places that are going to host these projects love these projects and benefit from these projects and have a say in those projects. You’re just not going to get those really durable political coalitions without that. So the idea that now we’re moving away from not just climate, but talking about the nuts and bolts of, you know, equity and justice in projects — that to me scares me, because it will undermine not just long-term support from places like Democrats, but it’s going to undermine any ability to build a durable political coalition.
Ross Kenyon: Those that I know that have potentially the most appealing solutions for right-of-center audiences are those working on dual-use technologies that maybe can sell to the Department of Defense, or are part of the critical minerals work that’s happening right now. I mean, I saw so much celebrating over the trade war from friends of mine who work on critical minerals. And, like, that might be good for you individually. I’m not sure if it’s great for the world overall or even for the country. Why — how should we feel about those that are in a better position to appeal to right-of-center sensibilities? Is that necessarily a bad thing? Does that somehow enhance carbon removal and climate action’s applicability across the political spectrum?
Erin Burns: So I think it — look, there’s a reason we’ve always tried to build a broad coalition, right? You know, and I think it’s totally fine — I’m not naive that, you know, Carbon180 is going to be really convincing to certain, like, folks on the political spectrum. Like, we’re not always going to be the best messenger for certain things. And what I think is important — it’s not about — it’s the question of getting into things like tactics versus long-term priorities. And yeah, your tactics should shift, and ours are shifting, right? And there are ways in which, you know, we’ve always worked with people across the political spectrum. Sometimes we’re not going to be the thing that, like, you know — we may be the org that convinces one group of people and doesn’t convince others. That’s always the case. That’s going to be the case for, you know, every other organization.
What I think it’s important to do is to be able to adapt tactics in ways where you’ve built relationships and trust with people who care about very different things. So you’re able, on that tactical space, to still operate within that. Like, I think people may be outside of — maybe there’s more knowledge about this now, but, you know, I think about when I first came to the Senate, and the idea that, like — at that point, things are maybe a little different now — I feel like 99% of staffers, it didn’t matter. Like, your bosses might be out there arguing about certain things, but if you’re talking, you know, you’re working together, you’re talking, you’re trying to, like, get your job done. And I think that’s important. What I worry about is not the tactics changing. I think it’s essential tactics change. I worry about those long-term priorities changing, and that’s what I see sometimes.
I think that’s true of, like — yeah, are we going to send people who might be more convincing to talk about this? Cool. Are those people more convincing because they’re saying they’re changing their actual plans to not — and, you know, be kind of focused to not engage with communities, things like that? That’s what I think is the important distinction.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. I feel better now. Thank you, Erin.
Erin Burns: I’m not naive. I’m not, like, you know — we know. Listen, I first started this job in 2018. Like, you know, under the last Trump administration, we were able to get $60 million for carbon removal R&D. Like, we worked, and that required Democrats and Republicans, as it will always require, you know, in perpetuity, as it has in the past. It’s not that — and that’s also when we started our equity and justice work. And that’s when, you know — I won’t mention, there was a Republican senator — a staffer for a Republican senator who I was talking to in an elevator. I said something, made a comment about sort of environmental justice. He was like, I bet my boss cares more about environmental justice than many of the other people that you’re talking to.
Because it is, you know — where I think back to, I testified before the Senate Energy Committee, like, a little over a year ago, I think. And, you know, you go in and you prep beforehand. You’re like — the big thing you prep for, in my experience, is, what are the senators going to ask you? Because they’re going to come with their own priority. So you have your testimony; they are not necessarily going to ask you what you want to talk about in your testimony. They might ask a real off-the-wall question, and you don’t, you know, want to look like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Anyway, so Senator Hawley is not somebody that I really worked with. I used to staff the energy committee, so I was like, I know some of these guys, like, I know what they’re going to ask, whatever. And I was like, you know, don’t see him asking me anything. And he actually just asked, like — he didn’t ask me any questions. He asked the EPA witness questions, and they were extremely environmental justice focused. Like, they were like, hey, the health impacts of this thing, why is EPA not coming in and helping the people in my state about this, like, these, like, legacy projects that are harming people’s health? And, like, talking about, like, the cancer impacts and things like that.
So anyways, it’s just to say that what I see sometimes in the carbon removal field right now is us operating in this world of, like, black-and-white political divides. And, you know, these high-level sort of political conversations. But really, when it comes down to it, the victories and losses we’re going to have are going to live in a much more nuanced place. And those tactics are going to matter, but it’s also going to matter that we’re sticking to those, like, core priorities, because we aren’t building a carbon removal sector just to build a carbon removal sector. We’re building a carbon removal sector to, like, live in a 1.5-degree world, right? And if we lose sight of that, then, like, what are we doing here?
Ross Kenyon: I appreciate the wisdom of that take. It’s a flattering way to say it, but surely it’s the result of working in this space for a long time and noticing these are the trends over time, and not to — I think the sky is falling and that we won’t be able to do anything. I think that’s important, but also maintaining that your values are important to you, and there are probably many things that are deeply concerning. We also need to move on and keep trying to make progress.
Erin Burns: Yeah. And I think it’s the difference between — we need to raise the alarm and protecting things like the direct air capture hubs program, that is, like, all hands on deck, let’s do it. And that’s, you know, we also are going to need policy for a very long time. So we need to be focused on doing both things. And I think, you know, back to 2015, 2016, working on things like the 45Q tax credit, we did not have the capacity as a carbon removal field to work on more than one thing at a time. We could work on one thing, and that one thing had to also have other people working on that. We could kind of be like, cool, we’re going to hop on to this carbon capture coalition effort. We have that capacity now, guys. We can do more than one thing at once. So, like, let’s just keep all of those things in mind.
Ross Kenyon: I want to chase down this theme about wisdom back a decade earlier. How might you, baby Noah — don’t put words in Noah’s mouth unless you really want to. What would you have learned, baby Erin, a decade ago coming into DC policy world? Would you have felt the same way, or is that the result of experience?
Erin Burns: Well, that’s a great question. I think it is the result of experience, because I think it is — look, there’s a reason people hire folks who worked in Congress a bunch, for example, because it’s sort of a, you know, to the outside sometimes it’s like a black box of, like, how do these decisions get made? And I think it’s helpful to share examples of, like, you know — if I think back to my Senate days, if there was — actually, I’ll give you a very concrete example. He’s not in office anymore, so I feel like for a while I was very wary to talk about my time in Senator Manchin’s office, cause it was like everybody’s like, what’s on this man’s mind? A big deal.
Ross Kenyon: I suspect after you were no longer there?
Erin Burns: When I wasn’t there. No, when I wasn’t there — yes, everyone was very focused. I got a lot of reporter calls on background being like, well, how is he thinking about this? And so I was very cautious. I have no interest in being the person to decipher that. But, you know, I’ll give an example of — there were times where I think there is a sense of, he’s going to do what the coal companies ask him to. And what I saw on the inside was, yeah, sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not true. We did things on mine safety, on black lung, that were Dem-only bills that we were working with folks like, you know, Bernie Sanders and people that aren’t on the Hill anymore now.
Because, you know, I have the wisdom, flattering in one angle; the other is just, I’ve been around for a while doing this. And, you know, we worked on miner pension things and mine safety and things like that that — I don’t think we ever got a Republican to support some of those mine safety, black lung things, and we were working with those offices, Harkin, like, that were seen as, like, progressive stalwarts. And when, you know, the coal companies and the mining folks would come in, they would talk to me about some of the climate stuff that they wanted us to do, and they would be like, we know you’re doing this thing on mine safety. We know not even to bring it up. Like, we know that, like, there is no point even trying to convince anybody to not do this.
Like, it was so much a part of what was — you know, he had lived. He was, you know — Senator Manchin was governor during the Upper Big Branch mine disaster. He lost an uncle in a mine disaster when he was younger. You know, we still called those families regularly, that were Big Branch families. And it was just a very — and I assure you, it’s the lesson to take about it is not — and this is why I didn’t talk about it before — it’s not Joe Manchin specific. It’s to say that understanding how these decisions are made, where yes, there are — I’m not trying to be naive about the role that money and things like that play in politics and the sway that the state of trust in those communities can have.
Where I think about, you know, if you ask your member — if you’re staffing a senator and you want them to, I don’t know, sponsor a bill, part of what you’re going to do, you’re going to have that summary of that bill, and you’re going to be like, these people like it, these people don’t. And a lot of times you’re going to need to know what five people in that state think. You know, where it’s going to be like, you know, Randy Dye, the state forester of West Virginia at the time — if he was like, I really care about this forestry issue, I was like, that in and of itself might be enough for me to just, like, get the senator to be like, cool, done. You know, like, let’s double-check.
So it’s just to say that I think that wisdom of when you live — especially for something like carbon removal, where it doesn’t necessarily get politicized at a national level, people are still learning what carbon removal is. Climate is politicized, but carbon removal not in the same way, that a lot of those decisions about something like [unclear] rule, they can get caught up in that bigger fight, but a lot of it is going to live in those sort of, like, much more tactical realities. And so I think it’s definitely, for me at least, a learned lesson from that sort of experience.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. Let’s catch people up on what’s happening now in Congress and in national politics, and maybe how you are looking forward to applying some of those lessons moving forward.
Erin Burns: Oh boy, do we have to catch people up? Oh, no stress reading, at least. Not a lot going on. Yeah. So I think this is what we have to understand. So I think these are the important things. If you work in carbon removal and you care about U.S. federal policy, here’s what I think you should care about. The first is we had a bunch of wins, in particular for direct air capture — not only direct air capture, but definitely focus on direct air capture. And the two biggest, highest impact of those are 45Q. The updates of 45Q — you got $180 per ton for direct air capture to saline. That’s a big deal. And the other piece is going to be the direct air capture hubs program. So lots of different hubs, and you know those are billions of dollars across both of them. So that’s what we’re keeping an eye on.
You know, we’ve got — and especially because, look, there are always, across any administration change, there’s going to be review of work and priorities and things like that. And I think it is important to show the value of those direct air capture hubs, to depoliticize, right? To not make — you’re not making the big picture case necessarily for the value of direct air capture in the long run; you’d say these hubs are going to lead to these — you know, I think numbers are great. Come in, you know, talking to companies, talking to their members of Congress who represent them and talking about the real-world impacts of this, the economic benefits, those sorts of things. I think that’s great.
And I think keeping an eye — you know, again, it’s understanding some of those inner workings of, we’ll see a budget from the president, we’ll see that appropriations process, you know, move through. I think that’s the other thing to keep track of, is that sort of budget appropriation cycle, where we’ll see the biggest levers for things like direct air capture hubs, R&D programs, the purchasing prize, all of that that’s happening at the agencies. And I think those are just the things that get the most attention. There have been lots of other wins around research and development for ocean carbon removal and, you know, some of the climate-smart ag work and things like that. So it’s those bigger programs that I think, at this moment, that’s what you’ve got to pay attention to. And I would just encourage folks — where, you know, if you work at a carbon removal company, if you, you know, are, I don’t know, in a particular state and you’ve got members of Congress who don’t know the specifics of the success of this or why it’s important to your state, like, you should be telling them right now.
Ross Kenyon: How does appropriations work? I suspect people have heard this word. Like, one word that people are like, sounds boring. Is it boring?
Erin Burns: No, I mean, I’m the wrong person to ask. I love appropriations. Okay, let me give you the digestible version of appropriations. So let me say, if people don’t know, there’s something called the Congressional Research Service, or CRS. It’s operated under the Library of Congress and it’s fantastic. And its researchers — nonpartisan researchers — they do work. Specifically, Congress can request reports, like, staff can request reports, but they’re mostly public, and they will explain in really digestible ways these issues. So, like, if you want to go for, like, a nonpartisan but, like, highly informed take on this, go to the Library of Congress, loc.gov, and you’re gonna be able to search CRS reports. And they have great appropriations ones, for example, that are like, here’s the two-pager on, like, what is an appropriations process. It’s a fantastic resource. Like, CRS, they’re angels. Like, love those guys. So anyway, so really great resource and it’s publicly available. So I would just say, like, that that’s a good read. And they do have much deeper dives.
Ross Kenyon: People listening, like, go check the show notes if you want to look this up. It’s there. Go read it.
Erin Burns: Yeah, and one day, if they are going to take, like, if you can do some sort of, like, influencer for CRS, I would be happy. I don’t really use social media, but I will start — listen, I will download TikTok to support CRS.
So anyway, so appropriations refers to — and I’m going to talk about this in sort of, like, typically how it’s supposed to operate — is every year Congress funds the government. They decide — now, there are programs outside of this, defense programs, mandatory spending, Social Security, stuff like that, where they have slightly different — this is largely about what we call discretionary spending, or spending where year-to-year decisions are made. And the process typically works where you’ll get a president’s budget, and that typically comes out in February. It is quite typical for it to be delayed, especially the first year, because it takes time to put these together.
The president’s budget is a document largely where a new administration will lay out their priorities. And the other function it really serves beyond sort of, like, high-level priorities is the agency spent a long time putting together these budgets. And if we’re talking about someplace like the Department of Energy, within that are going to be research priorities and update information that’s gonna help inform congressional staff on what’s going on, right? It’s a really great way to communicate with them in the technical details.
So you have the president’s budget come out. Congress — they’re the appropriators. They have the power of the purse. They get to decide how much money is going to be spent. So a lot of times, not in a partisan way, they’re like, cool, thanks for your budget. Like, this is our job. Like, this is — that’s sweet of you, thanks. And they start off the appropriations process.
And in the internal space, there’s a couple of things that happen. One is all members of Congress typically put together their list of appropriations priorities, and those can be influenced a number of ways. They typically have what’s called an appropriations form, and you submit a form. Some of them are really — some of them are Google Forms, some of them are super detailed. And you can do this as a private citizen, in theory, if you know that this is what’s going on. It is what a lot of lobbyists and others do, and they’re going to reach out to some people. They’re going to go to their universities, they’re going to go to the people, you know — but well-oiled machines are working behind the scenes to tell each member. This is especially true of members on the Appropriations Committee. These are the members who have the most influence, those on the Appropriations Committee.
And like any other committee, they’ve got subcommittees. Those subcommittees, you know — if we’re talking about the Department of Energy, we’re talking about the energy and water subcommittee, for example. This is the subcommittee that makes a lot of the decisions or has the most influence over those particular agencies. And you might look at, you know, if I’m thinking about the Office of Fossil Energy, where carbon management has historically been housed — when I worked in Senator Manchin’s office, there were like two or three groups who would reach out to us to try and influence us, but not very many people, especially for — talking about, like, a decade ago, not that much influence happening at the Department of Energy in general, certainly not at Office of Fossil Energy. And you might reach out to members like Senator Manchin or Senator Capito, regardless of whether or not they were on the Appropriations Committee, because they have state interest in this.
So there’s this whole process where it’s like members put together their priorities, and appropriations members put together. And then the committees take all these, like, you know, spreadsheets, basically, of saying, what does everybody care about? And they’re going to carry a different amount of weight, right? So senators on the Appropriations Committee, that’s going to carry more weight than senators off. But, you know, Senator Manchin, Senator Capito on something like the Office of Fossil Energy, probably going to carry more weight than somebody else, because the national lab for Office of Fossil Energy is in their state. And, you know, that’s something they care about, right? We might submit requests on other things, but we’re going to say, no, this carbon capture piece, like, that’s super important for the office, and that’s important.
These pieces are important to know, because that’s the nuts and bolts of how things get in or out of an appropriations bill, right? So if you’re talking about something like direct air capture, it’s not just about saying everybody’s cool with direct air capture. You need champions. So you need people who are going to say, this is my top priority, this is why, and I’m going to go to the mat for it. And if it’s left out, I’m going to raise trouble. Because otherwise everybody’s, like, cool with it, but not a champion. Then it’s like, if it’s left out, then you’ve got nobody who’s going to go to the mat for this.
So you go through that process and they have hearings about this. So you will see there are budget hearings and appropriations hearings — these are two separate things. But, you know, you’ll also see — I’m not going to go about the process talking about authorizers and appropriations, but basically these appropriators, they’re the ones, again, funding the government, and they put these appropriations bills through. So in theory, each year you get an appropriations bill. You get an energy and water bill, you get, like, you know, HHS, you get, like, all of these bills, and they go through a typical committee process, subcommittee to full committee, you know, to the House and Senate floor. Cool. We’ve passed and funded the government.
What you’ve seen more recently, though, is a lot of continuing resolutions, or CRs, which is to say we’re not going to go through this process, we’re just keeping things the same. Or you hear the phrase — maybe it’s just in DC — cromnibus, which is a CR and an omnibus. And the omnibus is referring really to putting together a bunch of these. You’re not going to individually vote on energy and water bill, HHS, you know, whatever it is. You’re going to just put a big package and say, this is funding the full government, and these are new bills, these are going to change things. That’s the omnibus. The CR part’s going to say, well, for these agencies, things that are more politicized — DOE typically not super politicized, but, like, EPA funding typically a little more politicized — that one you might just get a CR. You know, you’re like, cool, we just — like, we can’t agree, we’re going to move on, we’ve got to fund the government.
And that’s where, again, going back to things like government shutdowns and the stuff that does tend to be a little bit more visible — this is the stuff that’s happening behind the scenes. And there’s a reason folks hire people off the Hill to navigate this sort of thing, because that is the best case. That’s the sort of, like, how it should operate on paper. And a little bit of insight, and I could talk for, you know, 12 more hours about the ins and outs of it.
Ross Kenyon: So that proper civics lecture, because it’s dense, I’m gonna send it to people in the future, be like, this is what happens here.
Erin Burns: Yeah, it’s great. Here it is. Just tweet me all your appropriations questions and I will either answer them or I’ll tag in all the amazing [unclear]. That was one of the benefits of, you know, talking about a sense of history. When I started in Manchin’s office, this came — you know, he went into office because Senator Byrd passed away. And Robert C. Byrd, what a — you know, it’s, like, this huge figure in West Virginia. But even on the Appropriations Committee, which was huge for West Virginia, he was able to do a lot for that. And I had this benefit of these fantastic people who really cared about these programs in West Virginia, who were either still on the Appropriations Committee or went to other offices, and who would meet with me as, like, a young staffer to be like, you have to know that this is important. And, like, let me teach you all of this history.
So I feel like, you know, just a huge shout-out to those folks who were just, like, so generous with their knowledge, and it just made a very big difference as a young staffer coming in. So it’s, like, not just, you know — back to your question of, like, wisdom and history and all those sorts of things — I think it’s also important, it’s, like, not just my own history, it’s, like, what I learned from all these people who were, like, really, yeah, generous in passing on their expertise and their knowledge.
Ross Kenyon: How important is political capital here? I imagine you probably don’t get that many shots to save particular projects during appropriations that are important to your office, and so you probably need to make them count. And how can carbon removal compete against — I imagine they have lots of things they want to protect in their district. How do you ensure that is the case for carbon removal?
Erin Burns: Sustained effort, I think, is essential. This isn’t a one-time thing. You gotta be talking to everybody all the time. Yeah, I know those little levers, because it gets into the weeds, especially on stuff like this. That said, you know, I said you need a champion. It also matters, do you have people who are just like, yeah, we don’t care one way or another? Like, in some ways having, like, a handful of champions and a bunch of people who are sort of like, meh, it’s not my thing, I don’t worry about it one way or another — that can be ideal. If you’ve got people that are champions but you’ve got real big enemies, that’s not good either. So I think a lot of it is just about that sustained effort. And I think it’s going to matter, you know, in each state or district it’s going to be a little bit different.
But I think that’s where, again, going back to, you know, my very first-hand lessons about how things like equity and justice aren’t necessarily partisan. Nobody — I don’t think anybody’s going around being like, you know — if I talked about Joe Manchin’s voting record, I don’t think anybody’s like, that guy, like, progressive champion of equity and justice. And when I think about the work that I did around protecting miners’ pensions or mine health, like, safety, health and safety for miners, and the really messed up stuff that was happening there — there was this Center for Public Integrity report called “Breathless and Burdened.” It’s really fantastic. It’s a three-part, I believe — it’s a massive research project, and I’m forgetting the journalist’s name right now, I can’t believe it — but was exposing how coal companies would hire this one doctor at Johns Hopkins, who would basically come in and testify about, oh, this isn’t black lung, this isn’t black lung, which would mean that miners would not get their black lung benefits.
And these are miners who do not have necessarily access to all these lawyers and the medical information to say coal companies were sort of, you know, gaming the system here. And, you know, concerns were raised about this, and we worked on legislation to say, like, what does it look like to further entrench and protect the rights of these miners who’ve been disenfranchised, who’ve been, like, you know, or disempowered, who’ve faced sort of, like, economic oppression? This sort of, like — all of, you know, they’ve gotten black lung, they’re like — and they’re not even able to access their federally guaranteed benefits.
And so, just to say — but that’s because these coal miners are important in West Virginia. The United Mine Workers are important. All of these pieces. So I think it’s to say that a lot of times the thing that’s going to convince people to be champions of something like direct air capture in those closed-door conversations is going to be that the people in their states care about that. And again, I risk sounding really naive here, I understand. And I don’t mean this to talk about issues at large, but when we’re talking about something that is a little more — it’s more nuanced, it’s more specific about a direct air capture play. It’s not the battle for, you know, belief in climate change or not. It’s not, you know, the battle to protect abortion. And, like, you know — it’s these behind-the-scenes negotiations on something like direct air capture.
There are going — listen, there are going to be those bigger forces that we aren’t going to be able to influence, that we aren’t going to be able to even necessarily guarantee our own protection from, and things like that. And to give ourselves the best chances, I think building that sustained support from constituencies in, you know, states and districts, that can go a very long way when you’re talking about the mechanisms of how these deals get hashed out.
Ross Kenyon: Erin, do you want to sing a little “The Ghost of Tom Joad” before we leave?
Erin Burns: I was going to sing a Pete Seeger, like, “Which Side Are You On?” Coal miner ballad, so.
Ross Kenyon: What about the Wobbly song? The industrial union one? You know that one? Or — I wish you already knew Pittsburgh’s Number One.
Erin Burns: What a — I don’t know if I can do, like, falsetto, sort of thing that they do in the 80s.
Ross Kenyon: At the Steelers bar I was telling you about, I feel like that’s — it, if — you might. Oh. Okay, I’m thinking of a different song, and it’s got, like, moments of a sort of polka influence, I think about it. No, this one isn’t, though. There’s a lot of good Pittsburgh jams out there, you know, but Pittsburgh’s Number One, I think, doesn’t — it has a video and everything. It doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
Erin Burns: Wow. Okay, well, that’s good. I don’t know where we’re going with this. I was going to say also, I could watch Harlan County, U.S.A. That’s another thing you could watch.
Ross Kenyon: I was going to say you should, and you can hear a rendition of “Which Side Are You On?” That’s really fantastic. Harlan County, U.S.A. Great, definitely good watching. I’m surprised this conversation had so much to do with your origin story here and how much it clearly influences your work, since I very rarely hear this represented in carbon removal discussions. Is that just — the industry does not recruit people from backgrounds like this? Or is it, like, why is it, why don’t you see it? Or don’t — I’m just talking to the wrong people. It could be that too.
Erin Burns: You’re not. I love this question. I guess the core of one of the things that I think is important to Carbon180, which is valuing a lot of kinds of expertise, including that lived experience. I’m very proud that we have a lot of people from frontline communities, and it shapes how you think about this. And I remember a reporter saying this to me, that a lot of times when she talks to white people in climate, that she hears a background like — how did you get into this? — that was really rooted in, like, I loved nature, I went to a lot of national parks, those sorts. Which is great, that’s fine. I think the thing that was highlighted, though, is that that’s, like, a story, right? That it’s very driven by a particular kind of experience that one set of people’s going to have.
And I think that that gets to this question of what’s important in driving really effective climate policy. And a big part of that, I think, is who works in climate policy, and is this something that’s accessible to people? We’re not just talking about — you know, we’re talking about people from these places that are going to host these projects having a say in this. And part of the way that they’re going to have a say is they’re having a role, you know. It’s about inviting them to build these technologies and projects, not just, like, host them, but to be a part of developing what the sector looks like. And I think that that’s really important.
And I think it’s been something that we’ve really tried to do at Carbon180, when we think about that mix of, you know, certainly some folks here come to climate through their experiences in nature and engaging in those spaces, and other people come from it, you know, like me, where I’m like, oh, well, this coal piece, or I grew up a mile from an oil refinery, like, and that was my sort of — that’s shaped how I think about it. And I think that that’s really valuable. You want a lot of different, sometimes opposing, sometimes converging views on what’s important when you’re building this. This is going to be a sector that exists for decades, hopefully, that, you know, as we say, creates a more livable world for everybody.
And I think that’s a really — who gets to make decisions about this is not just, I mean, selfish, as I say, it’s not just about determining success, but it also just makes for a much richer, better, more equitable and just experience. So I’m team, you know, invite all kinds of people to come in and work on carbon removal. And I think the carbon removal space is very welcoming in the sense of we’re excited to have more people. It’s not a closed-door kind of place. So I think thinking about how we can proactively make it accessible to other people, because I think we’re already very welcoming — the more the merrier in CDR. So how do we make sure that people of lots of different backgrounds and lots of experiences see themselves in this field, so that they’ll come work in it and make it even better?
Ross Kenyon: I agree with that wholeheartedly, which is why I was poking at you earlier for your least educated person at Carbon180, for that only measures one kind of —
Erin Burns: Formal — good, make sure that — I’m just very impressed. My colleagues are really amazing and I’m just very impressed by them, and I get to learn from them all the time, and not just because of their formal degrees and things like that. And I have my own set of expertise, in both lived, you know, and from books. I don’t know, but there are — yeah, it’s just, it’s a great, it’s great to have that mix, I think. And if I can validate from my positional power, the value in having somebody who doesn’t have a, you know, isn’t just coming at this from the perspective of deep technical expertise, but pairing the experience that different people have to deep — that can and should include deep technical expertise. I mean, that’s the magic, right? And that’s the fun bit. That’s how you drive really effective climate policy.
Ross Kenyon: If you’re listening and you’d like to get involved in carbon removal, we need you. It’s not full. Carbon removal is not full. Come on in. We need a lot more elbow grease and brain power. There’s opportunities here. I hope there’s many more in the years to come. And thanks for being here, Erin. It was really great to —
Erin Burns: Thanks for having me. Yeah, this was so fun.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I don’t think it went the way that we intended it to, in a good way, though.
Erin Burns: The value of being less prepared than you should for a podcast.
Ross Kenyon: Is that a comment about me or about you?
Erin Burns: Oh. About me, 100% about me. You saw me — listeners can’t see that I came in here all disheveled and, you know, running in between meetings. So no, I loved it. This was great. I think I always appreciate the opportunity to have, like, a very genuine conversation, and that’s — I think it’s wonderful. It’s a great way to spend time.
