New Mexicans Testify at EPA Hearing: Odile Coirier, FFM

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EPA Methane Pollution rules hearing statement, November 30, 2021

Hello, my name is Odile Coirier, I am a Catholic Sister, working with Interfaith Power and Light New Mexico-El Paso Region. I live in El Paso Texas.

I strongly approve EPA’s step forward to advance President Biden’s commitment to action on climate change and protect people’s health by proposing comprehensive new protections to sharply reduce pollution from the oil and natural gas industry – including, for the first time, reductions from existing sources nationwide.

However, achieving a robust and protective rule will require EPA to fill gaps on critical issues such as frequent inspections for smaller wells and a ban on routine flaring when it finalizes the rule.

I arrived in El Paso two years ago. This beautiful region is surrounded by Mountains. This is a gorgeous landscape. Yet, the oil and gas sector impact our environment. Flaring is a practice that is rampant in this sector. We can see black smoke, fire liberating toxic products in the atmosphere. The bad smell is unbearable. We all know that the contribution of methane emissions to global warming is 25% higher than previous estimates. Methane is a key precursor gas of the harmful air pollutant, tropospheric ozone.

I am deeply concerned about the health of our communities. The most vulnerable are the ones who suffer the most. Some companies are settled in their backyard.

I am concerned about the environment when unceasing pollution create an unhealthy air, hence the high rate of respiratory illness among the adults and the children.

I am concerned because as people of faith we have a moral imperative to care for our common home and to protect the voiceless.

EPA must strengthen their proposed rule to protect public health and the climate, through a supplemental rulemaking or other action, in order to:

  1. End the wasteful and dangerous practice of routine flaring at oil and gas facilities, as states like Colorado and New Mexico have done already.
  2. Require regular monitoring at all smaller, high-polluting and leak-prone wells, and work to incorporate emission monitoring results generated by community groups and other third parties into its standards.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my comments. On behalf of my community and my organization I urge EPA to set stronger standards, eliminate loopholes for smaller operations, and end venting and flaring from oil and gas facilities.

Finally I urge EPA to finalize this rulemaking as quickly as possible, climate change is an emergency and our planet cannot afford further delay.

Thank you!

 

New Mexicans Testify at EPA Hearing: John Maddaus

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EPA Methane Pollution rules hearing statement, November 30, 2021

Testimony by John Maddaus  Albuquerque, NM

I am John Maddaus, and I am a resident of Albuquerque and a member of First Congregational Church UCC.

I support strong ozone precursor rules and strict enforcement of those rules.

The great tragedy of the industrial revolution of the last 300 years or so has been the externalization of costs and the increase of profits by dumping of toxic chemicals on our soils, into our waters, and into the air we breathe.

If this were a case of heavy toxic chemicals, such as mercury, being dumped on the soils of an industrial site and into the adjacent waters, the site would long ago have been designated a superfund site, and the responsible corporation forced to spend millions of dollars on clean-up.

Does dumping gaseous toxic chemicals like methane into the air make it OK, just because there is no identifiable site? No, it is not OK!

Already there are industrial sacrifice zones where these toxic gases have concentrated, and where it is difficult to live because it is difficult to breathe.

And as toxic gases are dispersed in the air, they contribute to heat waves, droughts, wildfires, extreme weather events, ocean acidification and sea level rise.

Already there are climate refugees fleeing our gulf coast, and nations such as Haiti and Honduras. If climate change continues there will eventually to no place to run to.

The atmosphere of our earth, upon which all life depends, is thin and fragile. We must protect it. Stop releases of methane and other toxic gases. NOW!

Thank you to the Environmental Improvement Board for this hearing and for all your work on this issue.

 

New Mexicans Testify at EPA Hearing: Joan Brown, OSF

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EPA Methane Pollution rules hearing statement, November 30, 2021

Joan Brown, Franciscan Sister and Executive Director, NM & El Paso Region  Interfaith Power & Light

My name is Joan Brown, I am a Franciscan Sister and Executive Director of New Mexico and El Paso Region Interfaith Power and Light living in Albuquerque.  Thank  you for this hearing and for putting forth rules that will address existing and new oil and gas facilities regarding methane.

I work with faith leaders and people of faith and conscience all over the state and we have been working to get strong methane rules for nearly 10 years. During this time we have worked in solidarity with frontline communities, where live many racially diverse people on the economic margins and they are disproportionatly suffering from health problems and the effects of climate change.

I have gone into the field with faith leaders where we wear air masks because the air is so bad. We have visited homes, including African American families in the Permian Basin who have foul air coming into their homes from nearby wells where there are violations we have seen with infrared cameras.

We need strong rules and we need them now. In 2015 at the UN Climate meeting Pope Francis said we were on a climate suicidal path.  We are still on that path, only it has gotten worse.  St. Francis of Assisi centuries ago wrote to civic leaders to care for the common good. All in leadership and regulatory agencies are still delegated to an ethical and moral standard to care for the common good and our Sacred Creation and Common Home.

We need these improvements:

  • Stronger regulations for unlit flares. We have experienced so many flares first hand.
  • More frequent inspections and oversight, this is something the frontline communities keep asking for
  • A ban on routine flaring and vigilance to keep out potential loopholes
  • Smaller facilities must be help accountable there is a cumulative effect to this pollution that does not know boundaries.

These elements would assist the health of frontline communities; help us address climate change; protect species and future generations.

Finally, I have been in the hospital the last week with my sister who is going on hospice. This has given me time to think about our Sacred Planet and community of life who are being put on hospice. People of faith and faith leaders in NM and the El Paso region are now wondering why they still need to show up and speak at hearings, try to work on legislation that does not seem to address the greatest ethical and moral challenge of our day, climate justice.  While they are still showing up they now state that they need to be hospice workers and chaplains for our dying planet, the grieving young people, the depressed many, and the species being extincted yearly.  Our work is to be of hope and life and yet now we are moving into hospice mode.

The book of Ecclesiastes says there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We have been in the time to take action for some time now.  We need strong rules and more.  Thank you for your work and peace this day.