I have long thought that President Trump and his ruthless Environmental Protection Agency Chief, Andrew Wheeler, should be held accountable for the crime of putting our children’s health and safety at risk with their radical deregulatory agenda.
It is ironic, in a most miserable way, that we should be heading into children’s health month with a long list of EPA’s dangerous rollbacks. And, as I write to you, more importantly, we are heading into a season of impeachment inquiries, which is sure to be a tough, nasty, stunning business.
Meanwhile we must carry on the business of fighting to protect our children. The impeachment process is hardly to be thought of as a distraction. But it is not the only thing that needs attention.
Trump and Wheeler are right now gutting a rule — one we fought so hard to win a mere three years ago — that limits methane pollution from oil and gas development. Every single year in which our greenhouse gas emissions go unchecked — and this pollution is on the rise, in the form of carbon dioxide as well as methane — is a lost year, one that we can never recoup in the battle against warming that is being baked into Earth’s atmosphere.
Every single year in which toxic pollution is released is another year when thousands of children, older adults, pregnant women, and vulnerable communities will be exposed to health threats.
Methane is responsible for 25% of climate pollution. It’s one of the most potent greenhouse gases, trapping 80 times the heat, in the first decade after its release, compared to carbon dioxide. Its potency speeds up the rate of global warming we are experiencing. And wherever methane is leaked into the air from fracking and drilling and pipelines, other toxins, some of them carcinogens, are leaked into the air right alongside it.
There is no good reason to gut this rule — except to give the fossil fuel industry a gift.
We need the government to set standards that will protect our children’s health and future. Otherwise, we are essentially prioritizing profits over people. That’s why Moms Clean Air Force will continue our work against this administration’s radical, anti-children agenda. We will never, never give up, nor will we lose focus. We believe deeply that the president and his EPA are criminally neglecting our children. This is unacceptable.