By: Lily Zwaan, Georgia state coordinator, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: January 11, 2023
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0317
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Lily Zwaan, and I am the Georgia state coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force. I am speaking today in support of the proposed EPA methane rules, and hope that you finalize the strongest and most comprehensive methane rules. We need to protect children’s health from all sources of oil and gas methane pollution.
I am testifying today because I have been worried about climate change since childhood. Growing up, the threat of our changing climate was always looming over my future. Today, as an adult living in Fulton County, Georgia, breathing polluted air every day and witnessing the effects of extreme weather and extreme heat, it is clear that the climate crisis is already here, and we are living it. I want to do everything I can to fight for clean air so that this generation of children doesn’t have to live with the looming threat of pollution, extreme weather, and climate disasters.
Methane is a powerful pollutant that is harming our health and fueling the climate crisis. For 20 years after its release into the atmosphere, it has over 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. It is responsible for a quarter of the man-made warming of the planet we are experiencing today. If we want to pull a major lever to slow the pace of global warming, then strong methane protections are the way to go.
We desperately need to slow down this warming. Warmer temperatures and erratic weather patterns caused by climate change make air pollution worse, putting the health of Georgia’s children at risk. In Georgia, we are already seeing and feeling the effects of climate instability on children, the elderly, pregnant women, immune compromised people, Black Atlantans and other Georgians of color, and low income folks. We see it on our extreme heat days, we see it when our city is flooded, we see it in our high rates of asthma, in Georgia’s changing agricultural patterns, and our changing seasons. Our notoriously hot city of Atlanta is an urban heat island, and our extreme heat days are a literal matter of life and death. For children and vulnerable populations in Georgia, we must hold oil and gas companies accountable for closure plans, and for stopping leaky wells. Whether you’ve got a well in your backyard and are experiencing the direct health risks of methane, or across the country surviving extreme weather fueled by greenhouse gasses, methane from all sources affects all of us. We can’t afford anything but the strongest rules possible.
Thank you for your time, and I hope EPA acts quickly to approve this rule.
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