By: Giovanna Rossi, New Mexico Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: September 2, 2025
About: EPA Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0162-0001, Compliance Extension on Section 111 Methane Rule
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment.
My name is Giovanna Rossi, and I am the field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force in New Mexico. I’m also a mom. I’m here today because our children—and our communities— deserve clean air and a stable climate. Any attempt by Administrator Zeldin to delay the EPA’s methane protections puts both of those at risk.
The timely implementation of the 2024 EPA methane rule is essential. Delaying compliance even by 18 months would result in nearly a million tons of additional smog-forming volatile organic compounds and 36,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants—pollution that would have otherwise been prevented.
I live and work in New Mexico, a state already on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Warmer temperatures caused by climate change make air pollution worse, which puts the health of our children—especially those with asthma—at even greater risk. And here in the Southwest, we’ve seen how climate-fueled disasters like wildfires can change lives in an instant.
In 2021, a dear friend of mine had to evacuate her family farm near Las Vegas, New Mexico during the Hermit’s Peak fire. She loaded her car with food, diapers, and other essentials, trying to get supplies back to her rural community where families were stranded—many with elderly relatives and animals they couldn’t evacuate. Her young son was in the back seat while she navigated 90 miles of mountainous road to deliver supplies and check on her aging parents. This is what the climate crisis looks like: mothers doing everything they can to protect their families under impossible circumstances.
That same sense of urgency is what I bring to this hearing today. Methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is fueling these crises. It’s also poisoning the air our children breathe. In New Mexico alone, over 26,000 children have asthma. Families are bearing the emotional and financial burden of missed school, hospital visits, and medications—costs that could be reduced if we acted faster, not slower.
Even courts, including the Supreme Court, have rejected calls to delay these standards. Delaying compliance now is unnecessary, harmful, and frankly irresponsible. It undermines both public health and economic opportunity—particularly the methane mitigation jobs our communities desperately need.
Administrator Zeldin’s proposal to delay compliance would be a setback for environmental justice, economic progress, and the well-being of families like mine across New Mexico. We urge EPA to stand strong and implement these protections without delay.
Thank you.