Each and every day, across America, natural gas — methane — and toxic pollutants are leaking into the air from every part of oil & gas operations – leaking in amounts that harm public health and make our climate unstable. We are in a massive public health crisis.
It is an invisible crisis. You need infrared cameras to see methane leaks. But they are having a visible impact on us.
As a Pennsylvania mom, I hear about the impact of air pollution from fracking operations every day.
I hear about it when a well pad is drilled just ½ mile from the school where a friend sends her children – one of whom is a leukemia survivor and risks exposure to cancer-causing chemicals as he sits in his classroom.
I hear about it when my healthy relative, living in one of the most heavily fracked counties in the state, suffers multiple miscarriages.
I hear about it when a mom leaves her own dying mother to drive across the state and implores Governor Wolf to protect her children in school because her adolescent daughter suffers from benzene poisoning, a result of a well being drilled just outside her classroom window.
I hear about it in southwest Philadelphia, when grandmothers are scared that their grandchildren, who suffer from asthma, are at risk as elected officials and the fossil fuel industry lobby act to expand the east coast’s largest refinery – which sits directly adjacent to an environmental justice community.
I hear it when my 4-year old’s asthma flares; when her tiny body struggles to perform the most basic of human functions – breathing.
Last week, I joined parents from across Pennsylvania to share these stories in Harrisburg. We celebrated as Governor Wolf committed to cutting methane and volatile organic compounds from oil & gas operations. We celebrated – but we know that air doesn’t stop at the border. We need rules to protect us from methane pollution all across the country.
Pennsylvania – along with Colorado, Wyoming, and California – are implementing clean air standards that can be, and should be, the building blocks of a NATIONAL plan to cut air pollution from oil & gas operations. These states are showing that protective rules can be created.
Our kids aren’t safe until everyone’s kids are safe.
We must cut methane emissions from oil & gas operations – especially the existing facilities that are harming our families right now.
This is a national problem that needs a national solution.
We need the EPA to enact the strongest possible rules to reduce methane pollution from the oil and gas industry.