A push to curb global warming could benefit Virginia Tech researchers.

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is co-sponsoring a bill to speed up research on ways to neutralize carbon dioxide given off by burning of fossil fuels such as coal.

Michael Karmis, director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research at Virginia Tech, talked with Webb last week in Washington, D.C., about carbon sequestration, which is the capture of atmospheric carbon believed to be a cause of global warming.

The U.S. Department of Energy has been looking into carbon sequestration for about five years, and divided the country into seven regions where organizations of industries, state agencies and academic institutions have been studying it. Virginia is part of the Southeast Region Carbon Sequestration Partnership, "the largest sequestration partnership that the U.S. has," Karmis said.

The partnership is led by the Southern States Energy Board, including private companies, state agencies and universities. It is part of a national network focused on global warming.

The bill Webb is backing would make more money available for work on carbon sequestration, including the research that Tech has been involved in for several years, Karmis said.

Karmis said the work is in three phases: identifying sequestration options, which has been completed; expanding activities to include testing, which is under way and will continue for more than two years; and larger-scale testing, the final phase. "You have to prove some of the things you say you can do," Karmis said.

"This legislation is an important step to develop technologies that allow us to use fossil fuels in a more efficient and environmentally sound manner," Webb said in announcing the bill this month.

Reached by telephone last week, Webb said he is interested in finding a way to use the trapped carbon dioxide, rather than just storing it. One possibility is to use the carbon dioxide to help push out methane, another coal byproduct and a heating and energy source.

"That's an original scientific concept with a couple of economic spinoffs," he said. It is still an evolving concept in terms of the science, he said, but could boost the development of coal liquefaction -- which could lead to coal-based fuels -- if the carbon dioxide byproduct can be handled.

Boucher teams up for emissions controls

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, is helping to form a program to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions . He also hopes to bring developing nations such as China, India and Bolivia into it.

Boucher's subcommittee is part of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and is charged with drawing up global warming initiatives.

While Boucher represents Virginia's coal-producing region, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., represents the home state of many car manufacturers and wants to curb pollution from vehicles.

"He and I decided it was time for a mandatory program for the United States," Boucher said in a phone interview last week. "He is skeptical, as am I, to the mandatory approach But we both believe the time has arrived to have a United States program for that."

The fact that both legislators represent emissions-producing industries is a concern of organizations such as the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Rose Garr, mid-Atlantic field organizer for the group, said Monday she hopes legislation accomplishes what many scientists say needs to be done and reduces emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050.

The subcommittee is about halfway through a series of 15 hearings to get recommendations from industry representatives and environmental groups. Boucher said the idea is to be sure no single economic sector bears an unfair burden from new controls. But the placement of controls "is not a matter now of if, but when," he said.

Work on drawing up a bill will start when the hearings are completed in April.