WASHINGTON – Texas lawmakers are pressing the U.S. Department of Energy to send up to $1.2 billion in stimulus funds to West Texas to help build a coal-fired power plant that would capture most of its carbon-dioxide emissions.

Summit Power would build the $1.6 billion Texas Clean Energy Project in the city of Penwell, where carbon dioxide could be injected into nearby oil fields to enhance petroleum production. Summit also is asking the Texas Legislature to waive up to $100 million in state franchise taxes.

Laura Miller, Summit's director of Texas projects, said the company would offer to pay back any federal stimulus funds if state lawmakers approve the new incentives and Congress changes existing tax credits to allow Summit's project to benefit from them.

Texas politicians are lining up behind Summit's request. Late last week, 27 members of Congress from Texas signed a letter of support that was sent to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Similar letters were sent by Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus and Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Michael L. Williams.

"The current state of the capital markets makes it nearly impossible to find traditional financing for a $1.6 billion plant of this early, first-of-its-kind prototype," Williams wrote.

"The DOE's various alternative energy grants in the stimulus bill become an important bridge for projects such as this that are technologically ready for construction but hampered by the severely depressed state of the economy."

Coal is a cheap and abundant feedstock for power plants, but scientists say it is a major source of the greenhouse-gas emissions that are blamed for global warming. With Congress poised to regulate such emissions under a cap-and-trade system, U.S. utilities and coal-mining firms have sought billions in taxpayer subsidies to make their plants more environmentally friendly.

Coal interests also highlight the impact of clean-coal technology on job creation, a goal of the stimulus. The Texas lawmakers said Summit's 345-megawatt project would create 2,000 construction jobs and 120 full-time jobs once the plant is built.

The stimulus law reserved $3.4 billion for fossil-energy projects, including about $1.5 billion for projects that capture carbon dioxide in an industrial setting. Miller, a former Dallas mayor, said her company's project would capture more than 80 percent of its carbon-dioxide emissions.

The 275-megawatt FutureGen, which was planned for Illinois and whose supporters include that state's powerful congressional delegation, is also seeking money from the stimulus to fund most of its $1.8 billion project.