Ruth Striegel (NM-IPL Board Co-Chair) Testifies at EPA Hearing

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Methane in our atmosphere intensifies the greenhouse effect, and gives us more and more catastrophic weather events like floods, droughts, and hurricanes. Yet oil and gas operators fail to see the connection between this and their leaky equipment that allows methane to escape, or their practice of venting methane. They harm their neighbors but refuse to see the evidence…I urge you to use the tools and technology available to cut methane pollution by 65 percent of 2012 levels by 2025. There is no time to lose. We must act quickly and decisively.

My name is Ruth Striegel. I live in Albuquerque, NM and I am the Advocacy chair for New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light. I’m a mother, a church music director, and a retired school orchestra teacher.

Human life is totally dependent on the health of this planet. We are part of a vastly complex web of interdependence among the animate and inanimate, oceans, land and climate systems. Within my lifetime, we have come crashing in, with only minimal understanding, taking resources and lives with impunity and creating havoc in our planetary systems. The more I understand about this, the more I fear for our future and the angrier I become at those who knew this would happen, but went ahead and put profit before the health of all of us.

Here in New Mexico we are living through a deep and prolonged drought. Because human activity has weakened the jet stream, we have persistent high pressure systems parked over us, resulting in terrible heat and weeks to months without rain. Our Rio Grande is down to a trickle. All this is caused by human activities that emit greenhouse gases, with methane as the most powerful and dangerous one.

The Golden Rule, common to all faith traditions, states that you should not do to your neighbor what is harmful to you. This is basic to human community. But it seems that our definition of who is our neighbor is far too narrow. When emitted into the air, methane is enormously harmful. People and animals living nearby suffer health effects from breathing methane. Methane in our atmosphere intensifies the greenhouse effect, and gives us more and more catastrophic weather events like floods, droughts, and hurricanes. Yet oil and gas operators fail to see the connection between this and their leaky equipment that allows methane to escape, or their practice of venting methane. They harm their neighbors but refuse to see the evidence.

In southeast New Mexico, we have a fracking oil boom in the Permian basin. Operators there are interested in bringing oil to market. The methane that is emitted as part of their operations is not of interest to them, so they allow it to leak, or they vent or flare it. They say that it’s too expensive to collect the gas and bring it to market. But the true cost in human lives and in climate change is much greater than the cost of capturing the gas. People living in the Permian, as well as our Navajo neighbors living near Chaco Canyon in northwest NM and in gas producing areas of San Juan County, have elevated levels of asthma and cancer. Many live within a mile of oil and gas production sites and have to live with constant noise and light pollution. Their children are growing up in these conditions! We would not put up with this in our own neighborhoods. Yet we’ve violated the Golden Rule and allowed this to go on in our neighbors’ backyards.

For better or worse, the New Mexico economy has long been dependent on tax income from extractive industries. As a retired public school teacher, I can tell you that this income funds our schools, but there is never enough funding to cover all the needs. So beyond the health and climate implications of venting and leaking methane, there’s the fact that we are losing a great deal of tax income that would fund our schools when methane is not captured and sent to market.

I urge you to use the tools and technology available to cut methane pollution by 65 percent of 2012 levels by 2025. There is no time to lose. We must act quickly and decisively. Thank you.

Sister Odile Coirier of El Paso Testifies at EPA Hearing

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“…after visiting the Permian Basin a few weeks ago and seeing methane pollution from a special camera, I cannot stop thinking that methane pollution and air pollution do not have boundaries. The Permian Basin is a methane hotspot.”

My name is Odile Coirier. I am a catholic sister, member of the Institute of the Franciscan Missionary of Mary. I am also a member of Interfaith Power and light in New Mexico. I live in El Paso, Texas, and have visited the Permian Basin where there are a number of Catholic parishes in the diocese.

As a member of a faith based group, I believe that every human being has the right to live in a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment and also has the duty to protect the environment. We have created a disruptive climate, we are depleting the natural resources, This wonderful planet has become in some part a wasteland. Our work is inspired by the powerful document of Pope Francis on care for our common home that is God’s creation. The time is now to address the ecological problems for us and the next generations to come.  Pope Francis said:  (and I quote)

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications… some forms of pollution are part of people’s daily experience. Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor and causes millions of premature deaths…there is also pollution that affects everyone caused by transport and industrial fumes .. Human beings are creatures of this world enjoying a right to life and happiness and endowed with unique dignity. So we cannot fail to consider the effects on people’s lives of environmental deterioration, current models of development and the throwaway culture“. (end of quotation)

Living in the Southwest for some years, it is very troubling to experience the disruption of climate leading to frequent heat waves, the bad smell early in the morning while we go for a walk. Our area is polluted by smog that affects  daily the health of people and mostly the most vulnerable. It is well known that the air in El Paso is not actually safe as reported by the American Lung Association and affects particularly children, seniors and individuals with respiratory conditions, who are the most sensitive to smog pollution.

There are many sources for our pollution including industrial facilities like the Western Refining , the Newman Power Station and Capitan Compressor Station. But after visiting the Permian Basin a few weeks ago and seeing methane pollution from a special camera, I cannot stop thinking that methane pollution and air pollution do not have boundaries. The Permian Basin is a methane hotspot.

As a Franciscan sister, I am very concerned about all brothers and sisters and God’s creation. A number of our Catholic parishes are in the Permian Basin so they have very direct pollution and climate change is affecting us all.

Texas is the largest producer of oil and gas in the U.S., producing over 30 percent of U.S. domestic production.  Consequently, this means that a significant portion of methane pollution is coming from Texas, oil and gas development.

More regulations are needed to ensure that industries take seriously their moral responsibility to act with integrity and accountability. They need to retrofit equipment to capture methane and there need to be enforceable rules with oversight.

Action must be taken now to strengthen oil and gas rules. Strong federal safeguards are essential for protecting the health and safety of our communities as well as to combat climate change. The EPA’s first plan to regulate pollution under Obama administration should be reinforced and strengthened to address more efficiently the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that continue to affect our communities.

I speak for those who are living in this region because I am deeply concerned. Life is precious, our environment is precious. “We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our Children”. Thank you!

Rev. Nick King’s Testimony at EPA Hearing

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I ask you, the EPA, to take your responsibility seriously in setting reasonable and responsible standards in regards to Methane emissions, so that God and history and the rest of the planet will see that we are at least trying to do the right thing.

Rev. Nick King  is one of the faith leaders involved with Citizens Caring for the Future, an affiliate of New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light in Carlsbad. Here is his testimony at the EPA hearing on June 15-16, in which the agency is collecting testimony to develop a proposed rule to reduce methane and other harmful pollutants from new and existing sources in the oil and natural gas industry.

My name is Nick King and I am pastor at the Carlsbad Mennonite Church, Carlsbad, NM in the heart of the Permian Basin. This earth, our home, is a gift of God to us to take care of, and I hope our lives and actions will be an honor to our Creator.  I ask you, the EPA, to take your responsibility seriously in setting reasonable and responsible standards in regards to Methane emissions, so that God and history and the rest of the planet will see that we are at least trying to do the right thing.  In our national attempt to be world leaders, our taking control of climate change is much more important than even the size of our nuclear arsenal, which is another related shameful heresy.  All of us around the world are children of God, and what destroys one, destroys us all, as we see in the effects of climate change all around us.  Anything we, or you on the EPA staff, can do to slow this stampede to self annihilation is important.

None of us like rules for ourselves, but from kindergarten to family to city, state, federal and even international entities-we all have rules that are for the common good.  There are rules that a tire company cannot dump our old tires on an empty lot, or our oil change center cannot dump our used crankcase oil in the storm sewers that go to the river.  Our air is just as sacred as our earth and water.

And now we are dealing with methane and other toxic byproducts that are part of the oil and gas industry that is so important to all of us in this area in SE NM.  And the methane problem may be even more prevalent than what is self reported by the industry.  But we do know that it has dire effects- both locally and globally.  Fossil fuels have been the lifeblood of our culture for more than 100 years, but they are also our poison.

On top of that, there has been virtually NO enforcement of air quality standards for the last 9 years here in New Mexico of even the pollution laws that we do have, and the EPA is little better.  So any reasonable laws for the good of all – all of us and all of the world, as well as realistically feasible for the oil and gas industry, should be created- and enforced.

In this highly competitive oil and gas industry,  reasonable standards would cost a little more to implement, so it would not be fair to those companies that want to do the right thing, if not all operators are playing by the same reasonable rules to contain methane pollution.

We are the wild west, but we are also God’s children that have a responsibility for our siblings around the world, and our posterity.  As world leaders, we as a nation should set pollution standards, and enforce them.

If the EPA doesn’t take the lead on this, who will?