The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009.

The Office of Fossil Energy has received a total of $3.4 billion from the Recovery Act.  Initiatives are focused on research, development, and deployment of technologies to use coal more cleanly and efficiently. Investments are going toward finding and testing new ways to produce energy from coal — such as gasification — and improving techniques to clean or capture and store the emissions from coal-fired power plants.  The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) Carbon Sequestration Program, which focuses on developing technologies to capture, separate, and store carbon dioxide (CO₂) in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without adversely influencing energy use or hindering economic growth, has acquired approximately $70 million in ARRA funds aimed primarily at (1) investigating potential geologic storage reservoirs, and (2)  providing training opportunities with the goal of creating a qualified carbon sequestration workforce in the United States.  Details on Carbon Sequestration funding include:

Approximately $50 million for a competitive solicitation for site characterization activities in geologic formations (in the context of CO₂ sequestration in geologic formations)

• Geologic Sequestration Site Characterization Projects

Approximately $20 million for geologic CO₂ sequestration training and research grants

• Regional Sequestration Technology Training Projects
• University Geologic Sequestration Training and Research Projects