The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced late yesterday (8/13) that it is rolling back protections for methane. Despite EPA having “Protection” in its name, IT IS NOT PROTECTING OUR HEALTH. This is the final rule of an EPA proposal Mothers & Others For Clean Air reported about in a blog a year ago, when there were public comments and a hearing.
Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases that exists. It is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) for causing climate change and disruption. Methane is also one of the precursors for ozone, which forms every day from methane, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other precursors plus oxygen in the presence of heat and sunlight. Once released, methane persists in the atmosphere for 10-20 years, not as long as CO2 which can stay in the atmosphere for 100 years, but still long enough to damage the climate. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that the methane humans have made is responsible for 25% of the climate warming we’re seeing.
The Environmental Defense Fund did an analysis of satellite data on methane pollution near gas and oil wells in Texas, and found that there is likely twice as much methane pollution being leaked as is being reported. So EPA’s new rules that roll back requirements for both monitoring or reporting means we would have almost no idea at all what is being released into the air we breathe.
America is facing two dire threats right now, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Both are made worse by methane, which contributes to both air pollution and climate change. Now is not the time to be rolling back rules that protect our health!
Rolling back the methane rule is the opposite of what health experts recommend, and opposite of what EPA is legally charged to do: protect our health. So again we ask: why is EPA using its regulatory and legal mechanisms to roll back rules that protect health?
