VOTER GUIDE

Methane Comments: Ruth Striegel

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(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).

I’m Ruth Striegel, from Albuquerque, NM, where I serve on the board of directors of New Mexico and El Paso Region Interfaith Power and Light. I’m also the chair of the Green Justice team at my church, First Congregational UCC. I appreciate the work that the EPA and each of you are doing to craft a strong methane supplemental rule proposal. Given the harm that methane emissions are doing to our planet, it’s absolutely imperative that we stop these emissions as soon and completely as humanly possible. My faith teaches me that it’s my privilege and obligation to work for a better world, and that world includes species beyond homo sapiens.  Our human and non-human brothers and sisters are suffering as a result of methane pollution, and these methane rules are key to putting a stop to the damage.

Last spring and summer were very difficult for me and for our state. The spring was terribly windy, warm and dry. With a lack of moisture in the soil and such unrelenting winds, two prescribed burns in NE NM got out of control and quickly combined into the worst wildfire we’ve ever experienced. The weather conditions created the perfect mix to incinerate a magical, rural area with a rich traditional culture. The total lack of precipitation in April, May, and early June was followed by ten days of heavy rains. The land had been sealed shut by the intense fires and couldn’t absorb moisture, resulting in damaging floods. It will be generations before this land can be restored, and the people there, whose lives are so interwoven with their mountains and grasslands, may never be able to fully restore their culture.

These fires and floods are the harvest we are reaping from our indifference to climate change. This is playing out all over the world in different forms. Methane emissions are playing a huge role in warming the planet. And they are wasteful and unnecessary!

My faith teaches me that it’s my privilege and obligation to work for a better world, and that world includes species beyond homo sapiens.  Our human and non-human brothers and sisters are suffering as a result of methane pollution, and these methane rules are key to putting a stop to the

In early June of last year, I visited the Permian Basin of southeast NM with a group of people from Interfaith Power and Light. In this incredibly productive oil basin, we were surrounded by oil infrastructure. Driving through the oil fields, we became nauseous or got headaches because we were breathing in the methane and other gases that were leaking out of the various kinds of equipment. Despite state regulations forbidding it, we saw flaring everywhere we went. We met with people who lived with cancer and respiratory diseases, who yearned for a better life, who lived with the fear that disease or accident would take their loved ones, but who lacked the financial resources to find a better life elsewhere.

Small, low-producing, and abandoned wells in southeast New Mexico are yielding almost no oil, but at the same time are emitting huge amounts of methane. I am very glad to see that the updated draft rule closes a loophole in LDAR standards, requiring routine monitoring of low-producing wells for leaks. I’m also glad to see monitoring of abandoned wells until closure.

I urge you to go further, ensuring that operators capture gas at oil wells and limit flaring to the maximum extent, making emission standards for storage tanks applicable to more tanks, and providing a clear pathway for communities and individuals to participate and engage in the Super Emitter Response Program by ensuring that approved monitoring technologies and data are accessible to all.

Thank you very much.

 

Methane Comments: Karen Smith

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(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).

Hello, my name is Karen Smith, and I appreciate this opportunity to promote strong federal methane rules. I live in New Mexico, and I represent Interfaith Power and Light, and also Green Justice at First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque. We are advocates for those who are most affected adversely by methane pollution, such as those who live in the Permian Basin. We have heard and witnessed their testimony about how it compromises their health, from cancer to asthma, and negatively affects their standard of living. Of course, we are also concerned about how methane accelerates the climate crisis for all of us.

I am urging the EPA to do more to limit routine flaring, better address emissions from storage tanks, and provide a clear pathway for participation in the Super Emitter Response Program.

While I appreciate the updated draft rule to cut methane and other pollutants from oil and gas operations across the country, I am urging the EPA to do more to limit routine flaring, better address emissions from storage tanks, and provide a clear pathway for participation in the Super Emitter Response Program.

People of faith such as myself who care about the environment and environmental justice are counting on you to quickly address these concerns and finalize strong, comprehensive new and existing source rules to cut methane pollution from the gas and oil industries.   I thank you.

Methane Comments: Cynthia González

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(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).

Hello, my name is Cynthia González. I live in El Paso, Texas, a city on the US-Mexico border. I work for the St. Columban Mission for Justice Peace and Ecology, a Catholic nonprofit organization and I’m serve on the board for Interfaith Power and Light-New Mexico and El Paso región. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with today on why strong federal methane rules are important to me, my community and the communities I work with. Through my work with impacted communities and as a border resident myself, I have witnessed firsthand how harmful methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is to our health, our safety, the livelihoods of entire communities and the overall destruction that it causes to in the biodiversity of our planet. 

In my community and nearby communities in west Texas and New Mexico hundreds of families are being impacted by the activities of the oil and gas industry. With many of them already seeing severe impacts on their health. This rule is an important step to ensure we protect them and protect the future of young people. In a recent visit to a community in South New Mexico, I was able to meet with a group women and mothers who are deeply alarmed by the lack of sufficient monitoring and regulation of the industry.

Through my work with impacted communities and as a border resident myself, I have witnessed firsthand how harmful methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is to our health, our safety, the livelihoods of entire communities and the overall destruction that it causes to in the biodiversity of our planet. 

During a presentation and after hearing from the group on the health impacts that they are seeing, one of the woman asked in Spanish with clear worry and disbelief in her tone, “I just don’t understand if they (meaning leaders, politicians, government) know that this is happening and if harming us, why don’t they do anything to stop it, doesn’t our health matter, don’t we matter”. These words should show us all the desperate need to protect these highly vulnerable communities. 

I trust that through this rule the EPA can begin to grant these families and impacted communities the protections they deserve. 

I’m particularly grateful to the EPA for taking steps to address methane pollution from the oil and gas industry – including by ensuring regular inspections occur at all sites and maintaining strong requirements to use zero-emitting technologies. The EPA and all of society must do everything we can to ensure that we are addressing impacts of climate change and protect the health and safety of communities like mine and those in Texas and New Mexico. These rules are an important step in that direction.

Thank you for your time. 

On Tuesday, June 30, Faith in Public Life and Interfaith Power & Light released a voter reflection guide endorsed by prominent national faith groups and religious leaders. The guide, Democracy, Values & the 2020 Election, addresses urgent issues in the election, including voting rights, climate change, systemic racism in the criminal justice system, healthcare and immigration. The guide, which will be distributed across the country for discussion in diverse faith communities, includes topics for reflection and sample questions to ask candidates  Download Full Guide Here

Download Spanish-language version of the guide, Democracia, Valores y las Elecciones de 2020

Issues and Questions

Democracy and Voting Rights (Page 1)

This election is more than a choice between parties and ideologies. An even more fundamental question is at stake: Can we preserve democracy in the face of serious threats to fair elections and fundamental rights?

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How do you see democratic values at risk today?
  2. How do systemic barriers to voting undermine our most sacred democratic values?
  3. How can your faith community better advocate for stronger voter protections at the state and local level?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans for protecting and strengthening voting rights?

Protecting God’s Creation Climate Justice for our Children and World (Page 2)

As people of faith, we believe that responding to the urgent threat of climate change is essential to caring for God’s creation and loving our neighbors. Human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels for energy, has thrown
nature out of balance, polluted the air, driven thousands of species of God’s creatures to extinction, intensified catastrophic events such as wildfires and hurricanes, and threatened the lives and livelihoods of our most vulnerable brothers, sisters and neighbors around the world. Scientists tell us we have less than a decade to avoid even more catastrophic consequences.

The United States has a unique responsibility to show moral and political leadership:

  • Transitioning our economy away from polluting fossil fuels toward 100% clean energy.
  • Honoring the emissions-reduction commitments our nation made at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, and taking additional actions needed to avert catastrophic global warming.
  • Assisting developing nations— who are least responsible for climate change but most impacted by it — in coping with threats such as increased droughts, disease, and sea-level rise by sharing technology and financial support.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What does your faith teach about our responsibilities for the Earth and to others? How are they interdependent?
  2. Has your faith community made an effort to cut emissions, save energy, or practice environmental stewardship?
  3. As a candidate, what specific policies do you support to protect God’s Creation and secure a safe climate for our children and future generations?

Loving Our Immigrant Neighbors (Page 4)

Scripture repeatedly makes clear that immigrants must be treated with dignity. Policies that rip children from their parents’ arms, lock people away in inhumane conditions, and ban desperate families from entering the country
should keep us awake at night. As people of faith, we believe that the way we treat our immigrant neighbors is a sign of how we treat God.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can we replace immoral immigration policies that tear families apart and cause trauma with an immigration system that values families and affirms the dignity of allv people?
  2. What can we do to heal the wounds inflicted on immigrant communities by political rhetoric that portrays them as a dangerous “other?”
  3. If there are immigrants in our community who are feeling isolated and under threat, how can we show support and build connections?
  4. As a candidate, what will you do to defend the dignity of all immigrants, and how will you further policies that keep families together?

The Last Shall Be First An Economy of Inclusion (Page 5)

Our economic systems should work for all Americans, not only the wealthiest few. This is a matter of justice and
human dignity. All religious traditions recognize that charity is essential to care for the most vulnerable, but helping our neighbors in poverty also compels us to address its root causes. “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld,” St. Augustine observed centuries ago.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What can we do to ensure that all Americans are able to provide for their families and live with security and dignity?
  2. How do we create a just tax system that is fair to all Americans, including working families who are trapped in poverty?
  3. Why does the United States lag behind most developed countries when it comes to providing paid sick leave and paid family leave?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans to ensure workers have living wages and economic security while the coronavirus pandemic continues, as well as for the long term?

More Health Policies in a Time of a Pandemic  (Page 7)

Despite our nation’s stated values of life and equality, the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee its residents universal access to health care. This is a failure of political and moral imagination – especially in a time of pandemic.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can people of faith be most effective in using our stories, congregations and power to advocate for health care reform?
  2. What do you struggle with the most when it comes to our healthcare system?
  3. How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted your community? What policy solutions can keep us all safe and remedy racial and economic inequalities in your community?
  4. As a candidate, what are your specific plans for making sure that quality,
    affordable health care is available for all?

Restorative Racial Justice (Page 9)

Justice and redemption are at the very heart of faith. Restorative justice begins with listening to and empowering communities that have been exploited, excluded and denied equal representation and freedom. The evil ideology of
white supremacy shaped our nation from its founding and continues to impact policies and communities today, especially in the criminal justice system. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and so many other Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, has provoked a growing, multi-racial moral movement for accountability and systemic reforms for racial justice.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can we dismantle the evil ideology of white supremacy in our culture and political systems?
  2. What can be done to end racial profiling and police violence against people of color?
  3. What steps can be taken to ensure formerly incarcerated people have voting rights and fair access to employment?
  4. As a candidate, what will you do to ensure racial justice is prioritized in the criminal justice system?
  5. How do we build safe communities for everyone, particularly people of color?

Made in the Image of God: Respecting the Dignity of LGBTQ People (Page 11)

All people have inherent dignity because everyone is created in the image of God. Our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender family members, neighbors and co-workers deserve equal rights, and to live without fear or discrimination.

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. How can your faith community more fully support the equal dignity of LGBTQ people in your state and local area?
  2. What are the greatest threats to LGBTQ people in your community and the nation?
  3. As a candidate, what are your specific plans to ensure that LGBTQ people have equal rights and are treated with dignity

The Global Common Good:  We’re All in This Together (Page 12)

What does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves in a globalized world? The health and future of our country and
communities are interconnected to the health and security of other nations. Our  fates are bound up in what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “an inescapable network of mutuality.”

Questions for Reflection and Candidates

  1. What policies do you think are most important for creating security for your family and community?
  2. What role should the United States play in the world to help build global peace and security?
  3. How can your faith community advocate for policies to create a more peaceful world?
  4. As a candidate, what programs and policies would you prioritize to help build secure communities and a peaceful world?