New Mexico Represented at National Interfaith Power & Light Gathering

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By Arcelia Isais-Gastelum

(NMEPR-IPL board member)

In mid-May, Sr. Joan Brown and I traveled to Washington DC for the National Interfaith Power and Light Conference. This was the first in-person gathering since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were there representing the New Mexico and El Paso Region chapter of IPL. At the conference, we met with faith leaders from chapters in other states and learned about the great work being done across the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving with intention toward equity and inclusion

Sr, Joan was a panelist on board diversity

The gathering centered on equity and inclusion by intentionally bringing in diverse voices and uplifting historically disenfranchised communities. Several panels and discussions dug into what it means to encompass these important spaces. Sr. Joan was a member of a panel that addressed board diversity.  Other panelists were Faith Harris from Virginia IPL and Codi Nored from Georgia IPL The moderator was Rev. Susan Hendershot, president of national IPL.

Approaching community organizing stems from the intention to meet the existing needs. As one faith leader stated, if you serve the people who are hurting, you are addressing the same structures that are polluting and hurting our environment.

We in New Mexico have seen this firsthand from our work in the Permian Basin, where unregulated methane leaks exacerbating the worst impacts of climate change are also directly hurting the adjacent communities in the form of countless health impacts. As people of faith and conscience, we are called to address these same systems that harm our planet and our people.

Spiritual Foundations for Climate Action

One of the most important sessions of the conference was spiritual inquiry: How do we integrate our spiritual lives with our environmental activism? Panelists from Buddhist, Christian and Hindu traditions shared their own stories, challenges and questions yet to be explored as we maneuver into living an integrated life of action and witness rooted in deep spiritual paths.

with Sen. Martin Heinrich

On Capitol Hill

On the final day of the conference, the New Mexico team visited the House and Senate offices to speak with our congressional delegation about Interfaith Power and Light’s legislative priorities, including the budget reconciliation bill, a wildlife funding bill, and climate refuge bill. During these sessions we also delivered a letter signed by nearly 200 faith leaders across the state calling for stronger climate action.

“We need moral and ethical leadership at the civic level. We must move from reactive to proactive actions to shift from fossil fuels, transition into just energy systems, face the threat of an authoritarian world view that is preventing needed climate crisis actions and listen to creative ideas from young as well as old to slow climate pollution and increase adaptation and mitigation,” said the letter.

with Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez

 

Rule Would Require that Investors to Know About Climate Risks

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The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a rule to require public companies to disclose to investors and the federal government how their operations affect the climate, and how they are addressing climate risks. This is excellent news and will be a big step forward in helping us all hold companies accountable for their climate impacts and risks.

But large corporations and their congressional allies are gearing up to fight it. Please send a public comment urging the SEC to adopt this rule.

Climate change poses enormous financial and economic risks, and publicly traded companies have a major role in our economy. Are they preparing for climate change? Are they reducing their own emissions? We don’t have a good way of knowing that right now.

If passed, this rule will require companies to report climate data annually in their shareholder reports and in stock registration information.

Across society, individuals, small businesses, local governments, and faith communities are trying to be good stewards, reducing our carbon footprints, using renewable energy where we can, and helping to prepare our communities to be more climate resilient.

But we need large publicly traded companies to be responsible as well, and this rule will give us the transparency to know what they are doing and push them to do better. Furthermore, investors will be able to make better choices, investing in companies that are taking action to reduce emissions and protect us all from climate disasters.

Please urge the SEC to adopt this rule.

(Please Note: The Deadline is May 20!)

There are only a few more days to comment, and large businesses are fighting it, threatening lawsuits, and claiming the SEC doesn’t have the right to require this important information. That’s why we need to have thousands of comments of support submitted by people of faith and conscience.

Investors and other market participants, including you and me, deserve to have all the information they need to make sure our investments are aligned with our values.

Tell the SEC that we deserve to know how climate change affects our investments in public companies.

Report: Low-Producing Wells Account for Half of Methane Pollution

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A peer-reviewed study in Nature Communications provided the first nationwide look at how much methane low-producing wells are emitting. While these wells produce just 6% of U.S. oil and gas, they emit HALF of methane pollution from well sites nationwide. “Eighty percent of US oil and natural gas (O&G) production sites are low production well sites, with average site-level production ≤15 barrels of oil equivalent per day and producing only 6% of the nation’s O&G output in 2019,” said an abstract of the report.   Read full piece here
Here is another article in Reuters new service
Characteristics of US low production oil and gas well sites.
figure 1
a Spatial distribution of active onshore low production well sites (n = 565,000) color-coded by site-level O&G production in barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) per site. The numbered boxes show a few of the major low production well site regions, including those for which site-level CH4 emissions data are available: (1)—Appalachian, (2)—Oklahoma/Kansas/Arkansas, (3)—Colorado/Utah/Wyoming, (4)—Permian Basin, and (5) Barnett Shale. b Distribution of the national number of well sites and O&G production, comparing low production sites with non-low production sites. c Box plots (centerline, median; box limits, upper and lower quartiles; whiskers, 1.5× interquartile range; points, outliers) showing the distribution of site-level O&G production in each of the five O&G production regions with large numbers of low production well sites shown on the map. The average gas-to-oil ratio (GOR, Mcf/barrel) is shown on the top x-axis. These five regions account for three-quarters (76%) and two-thirds (68%) of the total number and O&G production from all low production well sites, respectively. The horizontal lines within each box plot show the median production rate per site. On the right y-axis, the percentage of the total count of low production well sites and total O&G production from all low production well sites are shown in blue and red, respectively. d Cumulative distribution functions of site-level O&G production for all low production well sites (red line) and well sites in each of the regions shown on the map (blue line—Region 1, light green—Region 2, dark green—Region 3, orange—Region 4, purple—Region 5). e Cumulative distribution functions of low production well site age, representing the years in production as of December 31, 2019 and based on the reported first production date. Lines are color-coded as in d. Analysis based on data from Enverus Prism19 for 2019.