coal, carbon, and fertilizer

This one's still sort of a mystery to me, but here goes. The state House recently passed a bill allowing the state-owned railroad to subsidize, in the form of issuing bonds, a multi-part project involving a rail link, a private coal-gasification plant, and, I think, coal barges. An existing plant, Agrium, now makes fertilizer on the Kenai Peninsula using natural gas. But because gas supplies from nearby Cook Inlet are dwindling, the company wants to make gas feed stock from coal. The gasification project could also produce electricity for the regional power grid, according to the bill, and provide carbon dioxide to pump into Cook Inlet oil fields to increase production.
When the bill got to the floor, Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat from Anchorage and somewhat of a rabble-rouser, proposed an amendment that would allow the bonds to be issued only if the new plant could be run with the same or less carbon emissions, per megawatt, as a nearby natural gas-fired plant. The amendment failed, with only minority Democrats supporting it.
I haven't studied the arguments, but the idea seemed like something of a stretch, because the state doesn't currently regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Here's an AP story on it.