By: Ana Rios, New Mexico state coordinator, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: January 10, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Ana Rios. I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with my family, and I’m the EcoMadres field organizer with Moms Clean Air Force New Mexico. We have 19,370 members in the state, and 1.4 million across the country, working together for our children to have clean air to breathe and a healthy future. And that is the reason I am here today because I want to express my support for EPA’s updated rule to cut methane and other harmful pollutants from oil and gas operations across the country. This is an important step toward addressing the climate crisis and protecting the health and safety of children and families across the country.
Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet 86 times more than carbon pollution over 20 years, and climate change is already impacting our families and communities in New Mexico and the Southwest, where we're seeing firsthand the effects of climate instability. New Mexico has been featured in the national media since April for the early wildfires in the region, then the floods.
I have had acute bronchitis, and during these wildfires, when I needed to be outside, I could smell the smoke in the air and feel how my lungs had trouble breathing. As a Latina, I am concerned about communities living near oil and gas. 1.6 million Latinos in the US live within a half-mile of an oil and gas facility. Latinx children in the US are twice as likely as non-Latinx whites to die from asthma attacks, partly because of the disproportionate pollution burden Latinx communities experience from polluting industrial sources like oil and gas facilities in many counties throughout the US.
Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities are disproportionately exposed to dirty air, including harmful pollution from oil and gas operations, because of where we live, learn, work, and play.
New Mexico is the number 3 oil-producing state in the country, and in the San Juan and Permian Basins, you can find methane leaking along with toxic pollutants. This air pollution is harming the health of millions of people living near and far away, because even if New Mexico has enacted a state methane rule, it is not enough. Our neighboring states that also have oil and gas operations are sharing the air with us and other states, pollution is in the air, and it travels long distances. We need strong federal methane regulations to ensure and protect public health.
Prioritizing environmental justice and frontline communities is imperative as we have historically shouldered an outsize burden from the impacts of air pollution and the climate crisis. Once again, I support the proposed EPA methane rules and urge you to finalize the strongest and most comprehensive methane rules to protect children’s health from all sources of oil and gas methane pollution.