Hear From Residents Impacted By The Oil And Gas Industry As Congress Takes Steps To Roll Back Trump Methane Rule
Yesterday the Senate took a first step towards reinstating the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2016 methane pollution safeguards. This action by Congress is a powerful signal that they expect and support the EPA’s efforts to quickly move ahead with updating and strengthening these standards to levels that will protect frontline communities and prevent a worsening of the climate crisis.
Clean Air Council and its partners will discuss the realities of living near gas infrastructure across Pennsylvania in the context of changing federal policies and regulations on air pollution and energy infrastructure.
When: Monday, March 29th, 2021, 10AM-11AM
Where: Live zoom panel discussion!
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oqh884VERgqMNQMj7D15eQ
Who: Lois Bower-Bjornson, Southwestern PA Field Organizer at Clean Air Council
Wesley Silva, Pastor at First Baptist Church of Marianna
Voices living around natural gas infrastructure across the state!
Please reach out to rzerbo@cleanair.org if you would like to participate.
Read our statement from Executive Director and Chief Counsel Joseph Otis Minott:
“Yesterday, the U.S. Senate took a first step towards restoring the commonsense safeguards established by the 2016 New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for oil and gas facilities, which were needlessly and dangerously gutted by the Trump administration. Using the authorities granted under the Congressional Review Act, the Senate has sent a clear message about the need to address methane pollution from the oil and gas sector, particularly as the Biden administration moves to update and strengthen federal standards to better protect public health and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
As the second-largest gas producing state in the country, Pennsylvania stands to benefit greatly from this effort to undo one of the Trump administration’s most harmful rollbacks. The Pennsylvania Department of Public Health recently concluded that, “Air pollution is one of the greatest health challenges in Pennsylvania,” and the gas industry’s methane problem is growing in this state at an alarming rate.
The evidence is clear. Pennsylvania and other gas producing states need to cut methane pollution from oil and gas facilities by 65 percent below 2012 levels in the next five years to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Reinstating the original 2016 NSPS will cut volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and methane, and help to reduce both the devastating impacts of climate change and the public health harms caused by smog-forming pollutants like VOCs.”
