mCDR: Pending and Future U.S. Law and Policy

Some mCDR scholars and practitioners argue that significant amounts of public investment are needed to objectively ascertain whether mCDR is effective, scalable, and safe, and that new governance structures should be put in place to permit legitimate testing and support research and development of mCDR methods while ensuring that public interests are protected. 

mCDR-related bills have been proposed in the academic literature and introduced at both the federal and state levels in the U.S. Proposed legislative pathways have thus far fallen into two categories: (a) laws that aim to support safe and responsible mCDR research and (b) laws that aim to jumpstart markets for mCDR through new tax credits or government purchasing programs, often in combination with other, non-marine forms of CDR.

In this policy brief, we review examples of both types.