Texas is pushing forward with its climate change countermeasures, namely through the expansion of offshore territories designated for carbon sequestration projects; this new phase involves more than a million acres of state-owned coastal waters now made available for proposals from companies intent on reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases by injecting them underground, as detailed in a report by the Texas Tribune.

Texas' aggressive move, hailed by some as a necessary evolution in U.S. climate policy and by others as a dubious extension of fossil fuel dependence, opens the waters of Lavaca Bay, Matagorda Bay, southern Laguna Madre, as well as areas adjacent to South Padre Island, Matagorda Island, Freeport, and the Bolivar Peninsula, and though such initiatives are still costly and ripe with technical challenges, Charles McConnell, former assistant secretary for energy who now oversees the Center for Carbon Management in Energy at the University of Houston told the Texas Tribune that "We are really now on the cusp of moving away from institutional research and more towards broad commercial deployment."

However, deploying carbon sequestration technologies comes with a slate of intricacies, including high implementation costs and the complex technical logistics of capturing, transporting, and injecting carbon dioxide emissions deep into the earth's subsurface; despite these, industry advocates like McConnell see the not-so-distant future demand for petroleum products such as plastics, which currently are inextricably linked to fossil fuel use, continuing unabated, even with carbon sequestration strategies in play.

Indeed, the Gulf Coast is knocked by some for its close ties to the oil and gas industry, making it a potential hub for carbon sequestration due in part to its favorable geology and its proximity to high industrial emissions, and not just because state-owned land simplifies lease and royalty negotiations but also because the state's oilfield regulator, the Texas Railroad Commission, is aggressively seeking to control the permitting process for carbon storage wells something Virginia Palacios, director of Commission Shift, a Railroad Commission watchdog group, told the Texas Tribune, “The Railroad Commission having permitting authority over Class VI wells would unleash rapid widespread commercial development of [carbon sequestration] in Texas, which is something the state is not prepared for.”

Furthermore, as per the Texas Tribune, while the EPA is still to issue its first Class VI well permit critical for these carbon storage efforts, in Texas, the Railroad Commission's spokesperson, Patty Ramon, confidently stated “Given the variety of geologic settings in which storage will be applied, the Railroad Commission is in the best position to evaluate the specifics related to well depth, geology and hydrogeology"; these comments come even as some scientists, like Susan Hovorka of the University of Texas at Austin, express concerns about potential carbon leakage through abandoned wells, yet remain positive about confronting such challenges by locating, and properly sealing these derelict punctures in the sequestration strata.

Considerations for the broader impact and the economic viability of carbon sequestration climb to the fore, with authorities eyeing a balance between incentives and viability; Ken Medlock, of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, in communication with the Texas Tribune, underscored the critical need for revenue to drive commercial success, summarizing consumer willingness to pay for low carbon energy as pivotal to the future of the industry.