A seven-week cooperative agreement extension granted by the Department of Energy to Summit Power Group for its Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) earlier this month is not sitting well with the Green Scissors coalition. The coalition, comprised of Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and The R Street Institute, Thursday sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz urging him to drop the project sooner rather than later.
“As a coalition of free-market, taxpayer and environmental groups dedicated to eliminating wasteful and environmentally harmful government spending, we believe the Office of Fossil Energy should end the cooperative agreement with Summit Power and permanently withdraw funding from the project,” the group wrote.
DOE granted the extension May 13, giving Summit until July 1 to secure financial close. The carbon capture utilization and storage project, being built outside the city of Odessa, was initially billed at $1.9 billion but is now expected to cost $3.9 billion. The original forecast completion date of June 2014 has been pushed back to after June 2018.
The department awarded Summit a total of $450 million for TCEP. As of February 2016, at which time DOE suspended funding for the project, the department had reimbursed Summit approximately $116 million in project costs, or approximately one-third of its total commitment.
“In light of the project’s persistent failure to meet necessary milestones, the DOE’s decision in February to deny Summit Power’s request and suspend its funding was prudent, if overdue. However, extending the project’s cooperative agreement and leaving open the possibility to provide further support only increases the department’s financial exposure,” the letter says.