Under the Biden administration, the federal government gave out billions of dollars to companies looking to slash the planet-heating emissions from concrete, cement, and asphalt.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the future of that support for low-carbon materials has been thrown into question. The Environmental Protection Agency has already canceled millions of dollars in grants for the industries, and the administration is considering deep cuts to the Energy Department office in charge of a $6.3 billion industrial decarbonization program that includes major cement and concrete projects.
But bipartisan legislation the House of Representatives passed in a 350–73 vote last week would give the Department of Energy a clear mandate to develop a full program to research, develop, and deploy clean versions of the building materials.
Dubbed the IMPACT Act — short for the Innovative Mitigation Partnerships for Asphalt and Concrete Technologies Act — the bill marks just the first step of a push in Congress to bolster the nascent industry.
A second, separate bill introduced in the House just weeks ago as the 2.0 version of the legislation would allow state and municipal transportation departments to pledge to buy future output of manufacturers of low-carbon concrete, cement, and asphalt.
Sister legislation in the Senate combines features from both bills. Advocates say a bill that blends the legislation together could soon pass in both chambers as part of the next federal highway budget.
Concrete and asphalt together comprise nearly 2% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Most of concrete’s emissions stem from its key ingredient, cement, which on its own makes up as much as 8% of the world’s carbon output.
Since roughly half of all cement and concrete in the United States is sold to governments paving roads, patching sidewalks, and building bridges, giving state and local agencies the power to guarantee future purchases of green products could help startups in the space take off, said Erin Glabets, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts-based low-carbon cement maker Sublime Systems.
“Having the weight of the federal government and ultimately having that flow through the states to support the use of clean, innovative cements in our public infrastructure is really the best thing a company working in this field can ask for,” she said.
“We’re hopeful and enthusiastic,” she added. “That’s a really powerful buying signal.”
Unlike traditional manufacturers who use a carbon-intensive process to break down limestone in fossil-fueled kilns fired up to 1,400 degrees Celsius, the company makes a replacement for Portland cement — the most common variety — using electricity and alternative materials that don’t generate carbon as a byproduct.
Sublime is currently building its first commercial-scale plant in Holyoke, Massachusetts, with money it was awarded last year through the Energy Department’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) — the office established in 2021 under the bipartisan infrastructure law whose more than $20 billion budget is staring down Trump’s chopping block.
It’s not the only such project relying on support from the under-fire office. The federal government put up $500 million last year to equip Germany-based Heidelberg Materials’ new cement plant in Mitchell, Indiana, with hardware to capture and store carbon emissions.
