The goal of this workshop is to delineate priorities related to the deployment of large-scale carbon management in the Gulf region, including carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and carbon hubs as well as associated hydrogen hubs. The workshop’s focus will be around the design and implementation of federal incentives related to carbon management, legal and regulatory barriers to its adoption, and environmental justice implications and their context in the new administration. The goal of this initiative will be to synthesize the findings into a summary agenda for research and policy priorities related to federal policy and carbon management.
This event will be held in parallel with a workshop organized by Hugh Daigle (Petroleum Engineering, UT Austin) on technical and engineering research priorities for carbon management.
The LBJ Washington Center is accessible via the staircase or elevator to your immediate right as you enter through the New York Avenue entrance. You can also enter the building from H Street NW, between 11th and 12th Streets NW.
Metro
The LBJ Washington Center is conveniently located near all six Washington DC Metro lines. Metro Center (Blue, Orange, Red, and Silver lines) is a city block away, and Gallery Place/Chinatown (Green, Red, and Yellow lines) is a 10-minute walk.
Parking
There is limited metered street parking and multiple paid parking garages in the immediate area of the LBJ Washington Center.
As a senior member of the Carbon180 team, Alayna is driven by a deep belief that climate solutions must be equitable, just, and community-informed. With over a decade of experience as an attorney and shaping transformative policy, she currently serves as Director of States and Regions. She helps scale carbon removal solutions that center the voices and needs of communities.
Her work bridges the gap between grassroots advocacy and policy impact—designing science-based, justice-centered strategies to reverse climate change and improve public health. From negotiating environmental relief for overburdened neighborhoods in Baltimore, to building multistate legislative coalitions along the Mississippi River, to co-creating a national legal empowerment program, Alayna has led with collaboration, equity, and systems thinking. Alayna received her Juris Doctor from Western Michigan University and a bachelor's in social relations and policy from Michigan State University.
Specialties: Environmental justice, carbon removal, public policy, strategic partnerships, movement building, and climate advocacy.
Past organizations: Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Namati, National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Charles Mason is the H. A. "Dave" True, Jr. Chair in Petroleum and Natural Gas Economics in the Department of Economics and past Associate Dean for Research in the College of Business at the University of Wyoming.
He is an internationally known scholar who specializes in Environmental and Resource Economics with over 90 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He testified in the case against BP related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. He served as the managing editor of the top international journal in the field of Environmental and Resource Economics (the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management), from 2006 to 2011. He is currently an associate editor of the European Economic Review, editor-in-chief of the Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy and joint editor-in-chief of Strategic Behavior in the Environment.
He earned a double B.A. in Economics and Mathematics in 1977 and a Ph.D. in Economics in 1983, all at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a non-resident fellow at Resources for the Future and has been a visiting academic at the University of Cambridge (2003); the London School of Economics (2014, 2015); the University of Oxford (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012); the Venice International University, Ca’ Foscari (2013); and the Toulouse School of Economics (2013). He has been on the faculty at the University of Wyoming since 1982.
Daniel Shawhan is a fellow at Resources for the Future and an adjunct faculty member in applied economics at Cornell University. Much of his research focuses on predicting and estimating the effects of electricity policies, including environmental ones. He has played a leading role in developing a new set of capabilities for simulating how power grids, power plants, and pollution levels will respond to potential changes in policy. The same simulation capabilities can be used to evaluate the effects of potential new power plants and transmission lines. He also works on electricity market design and environmental policy design. Shawhan has helped state governments craft electricity market reforms and first-in-the-nation policies for hybrid vehicles, energy efficiency, green buildings, and renewable energy.
Emily Pope is the carbon management senior fellow at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). She represents C2ES in all matters related to carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Emily has a background in Earth Science, with applications to carbon management, geothermal systems, critical minerals, and science communication. She received her PhD in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University and served as faculty at the Natural History Museum of Denmark for several years before focusing exclusively on accelerating clean energy solutions through education, communication, and policy development.
Jessie Stolark is the executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, which is convened and staffed by the Great Plains Institute. The Coalition brings together more than 100 companies, unions, and conservation and environmental policy organizations, building federal policy support to enable economy-wide, commercial-scale deployment of carbon management technologies.
Based in Washington, DC, Jessie leads the Coalition’s successful federal advocacy, convening, and education work to foster economy-wide deployment of carbon management.
She joined the Great Plains Institute in 2019 as the Coalition’s public policy and member relations manager. Previously, she was a policy advisor at Third Way, where she managed the organization’s carbon capture and industrial decarbonization portfolio. Jessie also served as a policy associate at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. She holds a master’s degree in applied geosciences from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College.
Patrick Connor is a third year PhD student in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is advised by Dr. Nicholas Muller. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a certificate in Sustainability from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022.
He has previously worked for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on electric vehicle charging and at the Allegheny Conference for Community Development on local energy policy. He currently researches carbon capture technology, examining the costs and benefits of placing the technology on power plants.
Wil Burns holds a PhD in international law from the University of Wales-Cardiff School of Law (now Cardiff University School of Law & Politics). He is a Professor of Research and Co-Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy at American University. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the International Law Research Program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Canada, and as Co-Chair of the International Environmental Law Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association. He directed the MS in Energy Policy and Climate Program at Johns Hopkins University, from 2012-2014, where he also taught courses in domestic and international climate change law and domestic energy law.
He previously served as President of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, and Co-Chair of the International Environmental Law interest group of the American Society of International Law. He has taught at various other academy institutions, including the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, Williams College, Colby College, Santa Clara University School of Law and the Monterey Institute of International Studies of Middlebury College. Prior to becoming an academic, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for the State of Wisconsin and worked in the non-governmental sector for twenty years, including as Executive Director of the Pacific Center for International Studies, a think-tank that focused on implementation of international wildlife treaty regimes, including the Convention on Biological Diversity and International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
His current areas of research focus are climate geoengineering and the role of loss and damage in international climate regimes.
Yueming (Lucy) Qiu is a professor and associate dean for research and faculty affairs in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland College Park. Her research group focuses on using big data with quasi-experimental and experimental methods to answer empirical questions related to the interactions among consumer behaviors, low-carbon technologies and incentives. Her research projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, Department of Defense, Electric Power Research Institute and Water Research Foundation. Qiu received her Ph.D. from Stanford University and B.S. from Tsinghua University.
She has published in journals including The Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, Joule and Nature Communications. She is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the APPAM World Citizen Prizes in Environmental Performance. She served as the vice president of academic affairs of the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) and co-chair of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)'s Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy area.
