Methane Comments: Arcelia Isais-Gastelum

(The EPA is hosting three virtual public hearings on January 10-12. These hearings are an important opportunity for communities across the country to make their voices heard, and demand that EPA adopts strong, comprehensive methane safeguards to protect our health and our planet. We share ccomments from New Mexico and El Paso residents).

My name is Arcelia Isais-Gastelum. I am a resident of Albuquerque and a person of faith and conscious. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the federal methane rules.

Throughout my relatively short educational and professional career, I have dedicated my life toward moving us toward a sustainable future. In these ten years, I have operated under the faith and determination that as the technology gets better and the science becomes clearer, we would collectively move toward this path naturally. What instead I’ve seen over and over again is a resistance towards doing even the bare minimum.

Stopping pollution is a crucial first step we must take for protecting our communities. From a moral, physical, and spiritual standpoint, we can no longer afford to keep sacrificing the health of our people for short term economic gain.

New Mexico has some of the worst methane pollution in the country. In addition to causing a quarter of the global warming we are experiencing, methane operations also release compounds into our air that cause respiratory diseases and increase risks of cancer.

Stopping pollution is a crucial first step we must take for protecting our communities. From a moral, physical, and spiritual standpoint, we can no longer afford to keep sacrificing the health of our people for short term economic gain.

This country has repeatedly empowered industries who routinely put our children at risk. It’s become so normalized and expected, there’s now an entire generation of kids who, like me, are growing up and realizing they are beholden to a system that agreed to put their future at stake so previous generations could turn a profit.

It is for these reasons that I strongly support doing the bare minimum of strengthening our federal methane regulations. I say this is the bare minimum because we are not asking to shut down all operations nor to ban all toxic emissions, but simply to regularly inspect these operations and lower the emissions to safer levels.

Thank you again for your time.