On February 25, echoing his previous attack on funds for carbon capture projects in an earlier version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Glenn Beck stated that the final version of "[t]he spending bill, clean of earmarks, has ... $800 million for carbon capture projects." Meanwhile, on-screen text read: "$800M to Carbon Capture Project: What Is That?"

Beck previously attacked an earlier version of the bill by citing a similar provision he said he did not understand. The final version of the bill appropriates $800 million for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) Round III Funding Opportunity Announcement, which, according to the agency that implements it, is “seeking to partner with industry to demonstrate the next generation of technologies to capture and sequester ... carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power generation facilities.” Yet, as Media Matters for America previously noted, in June 2008, Beck criticized “liberals in Congress controlled by the radical environmental special interest groups” for “block[ing] clean coal technology.”

From the Conference Report accompanying the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

FOSSIL ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

The conferees agree to provide an additional $3,400,000,000 for the Fossil Energy Research and Development program, instead of $2,400,000,000 as proposed by the House and $4,600,000,000 as proposed by the Senate.

Funds under this heading include $1,000,000,000 for fossil energy research and development programs; $800,000,000 for additional amounts for the Clean Coal Power Initiative Round III Funding Opportunity Announcement; $1,520,000,000 for a competitive solicitation for a range of industrial carbon capture and energy efficiency improvement projects, including a small allocation for innovative concepts for beneficial CO2 reuse; $50,000,000 for a competitive solicitation for site characterization activities in geologic formations; $20,000,000 for geologic sequestration training and research grants; and $10,000,000 for program direction funding.

According to the Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), which is responsible for implementing the program, CCPI is “a 10-year, $2 billion program designed to support the Clean Coal Technology Roadmap milestones with the government providing up to 50 percent of the cost of demonstrating a range of promising technologies. CCPI is implemented through a series of five solicitations over the 10-year period, two of which have already been issued and selections made.” For its third-round solicitations -- which the recovery act's funds are directed to -- NETL said it is “seeking to partner with industry to demonstrate the next generation of technologies to capture and sequester, or put to beneficial reuse, carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power generation facilities:

The CCPI Round 3 is seeking applications for advanced coal-based projects that have progressed beyond the research and development stage, to a point of readiness for operation at a scale that, once demonstrated, can be readily replicated and deployed into commercial practice within the electric power industry.

According to this Announcement, DOE's goals are to demonstrate, at commercial scale, in a commercial setting, technologies that make significant progress toward the overall goals of DOE's Carbon Sequestration Program. Coal-based power technologies may produce heat, fuels, chemicals, hydrogen, or other useful by-products in any combination with production of electricity.

From the February 25 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: But [President] Obama isn't done yet. Ask yourself what's wrong with this next sentence.

OBAMA [video clip]: I'm proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks.

BECK: I'm sorry -- didn't know you were coming back to me so soon. Wow. Wow. Maybe he's using a foreign-language dictionary there to define the word ”earmarks," because I think that's the only way you could possibly think that statement was true.

The spending bill, clean of earmarks, has $2 billion for batteries in it, $800 million for carbon capture projects, and more than $3 million for new uniforms at the Transportation Security Administration -- you know, the airport cops. 'Cause they think that'll make them look more official. Mm-hmm. It's the uniform that's making me not listen to them.

Obama is playing word games.