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. 

Methane Comments: Tom 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).

My name is Tom Smith, a member of the Franciscan community and director of the Holy Cross Retreat Center in Mesilla Park  We have a Laudato Si! Committee here to promote care for the earth both locally and around the world, as well to care for the people most affected by environmental concerns.  As a faith leader, I look to St. Francis of Assisi, the patron of ecology, and to Pope Francis who has fervently called for action to care for all aspects of the earth and the people who live here.

I lived in Artesia for a while and heard and smelled the flaring of the methane and gas close to where I lived.  Many people live close to such noxious and dangerous fumes but are too poor to move elsewhere so they feel the effects most personally.

New Mexico receives much income from the gas and oil industry in the Permian Basin, but the state also needs to be conscientious about the environmental impact of the industry and work for effective regulations.

I lived in Artesia for a while and heard and smelled the flaring of the methane and gas close to where I lived.  Many people live close to such noxious and dangerous fumes but are too poor to move elsewhere so they feel the effects most personally.
You all know more about the details of what needs to be done, so I will just ask as a faith leader that you consider the importance of regulating methane and other emissions to keep all people safe and our earth more enduring as a safe place to live.