By: Giovanna Rossi, New Mexico Field Organizer
Date: September 15, 2026
About: Proposed Methane Rule Rollback
To: Office of Management and Budget
My name is Giovanna Rossi, and I’m the New Mexico field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force. I’m also a mom.
I want to focus my comments specifically on the public health, environmental, and climate implications of weakening federal methane standards.
I live and work in New Mexico, a state on the frontlines of the climate crisis and, as the second largest oil producing state, a state where oil and gas development is a significant source of methane pollution.
For families, methane pollution isn't only a climate issue. Oil and gas operations also release harmful co-pollutants. Leak detection and controls on venting and flaring help protect the health of people working in and living near oil and gas fields.
That is particularly important for children. Pollution from fossil fuel venting and flaring results in $7.4 billion in health damages annually, including more than 700 premature deaths and 73,000 asthma exacerbations among children.
This hits close to home in New Mexico. More than 26,000 children in our state have asthma. Families bear the emotional and financial burden of missed school, hospital visits and medications. Weakening pollution protections moves us in the wrong direction.
There is also a climate consequence.
New Mexico is already experiencing warmer temperatures, drought, and climate-fueled disasters like wildfires. Methane pollution from the oil and gas industry contributes to the climate crisis, making strong methane protections especially important for states like ours.
I've seen what those impacts can mean for families. During the Hermit's Peak fire, a close friend had to evacuate her family farm near Las Vegas, New Mexico. With her young son in the back seat, she drove 90 miles of mountainous road carrying food, diapers and other essentials back to her rural community, where families were stranded, while also checking on her aging parents.
For me, that's what the climate crisis ultimately looks like: mothers doing everything they can to protect their families under incredibly difficult circumstances.
Strong methane standards address both sides of this problem. They help mitigate the climate crisis while leak detection and controls on venting and flaring reduce harmful pollution. They also reduce waste by keeping more gas in pipelines and out of the atmosphere.
From a New Mexico perspective, weakening those protections would mean greater risks to public health, our environment and our climate.
As OMB reviews EPA's proposal to broadly reconsider the 2024 Methane Rule, we ask that implementation concerns be addressed without sacrificing the core protections families and communities depend upon.
First, maintain strong leak detection requirements. Finding leaks is fundamental to reducing methane pollution and the harmful pollution released alongside it. Any revisions or clarifications should preserve meaningful requirements for operators to monitor for and detect leaks.
Second, maintain strong controls on venting and flaring. These protections reduce methane waste while also reducing pollution that harms people's health. Implementation improvements should make these requirements effective, not eliminate the protections themselves.
Third, maintain meaningful requirements for low-producing wells. Nearly half of methane emissions come from low-producing oil and gas wells. Exempting these wells would therefore significantly increase methane and harmful co-pollutants released into the air.
And fourth, maintain strong, enforceable federal standards. Federal protections are important because pollution doesn't stop at state borders. While New Mexico has passed strong state methane protections and continues to lead alongside Colorado on commonsense standards, not every state has moved as swiftly. Consistent federal standards protect people working in and living near oil and gas fields, and create certainty for industry while avoiding a patchwork in which companies operate under substantially different methane requirements simply because they cross a state line.
Where revisions or clarifications are necessary, they should improve implementation while preserving these core protections.
For New Mexico families, these two issues are directly connected: the public health, environmental and climate benefits of the methane rule depend on strong and effective implementation.
As OMB reviews this proposal, we ask that you maintain meaningful leak detection, venting and flaring controls, protections addressing low-producing wells, and enforceable federal standards, and ensure that any revisions or clarifications make those protections work better rather than weaken them.
New Mexico families need both: strong protections and effective implementation.
Thank you.