We all know Texas is the energy capital of America, and we know that our ability to lead the country in so many types of energy production — oil, natural gas, wind, solar, battery storage and soon geothermal — is often in spite of federal regulations that are designed to delay and obstruct.

Thankfully, the incoming Trump administration has pledged to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and speed up permitting. President-elect Trump’s nomination of Lee Zeldin to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could restore sanity to an agency that is holding back billions of dollars in new investment — including the fast-growing carbon capture industry.

Capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide in the ground is not a new concept. Texas oil producers pioneered the process and have been capturing and injecting CO2 in the oilfield to coax more oil out of the ground for over 50 years. Now industry wants to expand that and permanently store CO2 in deep underground formations, in what are known as “Class VI” wells. Unsurprisingly, many Texas energy companies are proposing to spend big bucks to make this happen.

Read more in Utility Dive here.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.