By: Tracy Sabetta, Ohio Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 17, 2021
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0295
To: Environmental Protection Agency
Good afternoon and thank you so much for offering this opportunity to speak with you today about the need to implement commonsense methane pollution safeguards for new and existing sources of oil and gas operations. My name is Tracy Sabetta, and I am a member of Moms Clean Air Force from Pickerington, Ohio, just outside Columbus. I am a mom, a daughter, and someone who has spent decades advocating for public health protections both personally and professionally.
The prospect of adopting rules to limit methane pollution 65% by 2025 from 2012 levels would have a profound impact on states like Ohio. We are currently home to more than 103,000 oil and gas production facilities like wells, compressors, and processing stations. We rank first in the nation for total residents living within a half mile of these oil and gas facilities and second for total students attending a school, daycare, or college within a half mile of oil and gas facilities. These operations have been hailed as an economic boon for Ohio, but the increased methane produced by an unregulated industry will hit us here at home and bring along its own costs.
According to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report, Ohio’s pediatric asthma cases currently top 200,000 children. As you know, air pollution created by oil and gas operations contributes to ozone smog that can damage lungs and trigger more frequent and more severe asthma attacks. I am fortunate that my daughter was not born with a respiratory illness, but many of her friends were not that lucky. Parents raise their children in Ohio expecting to do so in a healthy and safe environment, not next to industrial sources that pose serious health and safety risks. Now imagine how that is exacerbated when methane emissions are unregulated in those same areas in Ohio.
While methane pollution safeguards would help to protect the health of Ohio families, they are also critical in the fight against climate change. There is no longer any disputing that climate change is a public health emergency. And here in Ohio, the effects of climate change are being felt in ways we might notice more than we realize. Families across Ohio are experiencing more dangerous storms and record rainfall. We are also experiencing more extreme heat days, which are dangerous for babies, children, pregnant women, older adults, and people with underlying health conditions, such as asthma.
We are fortunate enough to have the state climate office now residing within the Ohio State University system. The office provides examples of climate change impacts within our state. These include extensive flooding that caused road closures in Central Ohio this year, an increase in the tick population in forested areas in Ohio and a corresponding increase in Lyme disease, and a seasonal redistribution of rainfall that causes drought-like summer conditions and extra rain in the spring and fall that results in less time to plant and harvest crops.
The most severe impact currently being seen is a rise in overnight temperatures. Rather than temperatures decreasing when the sun goes down, Ohio is seeing an increase in the number of days where the low never drops below 80 degrees. This leads to huge increases in electric bills, overworked cooling systems, and negative health impacts on our most vulnerable populations. Prioritizing environmental justice and frontline communities is imperative as they have historically shouldered an outsize burden from the impacts of air pollution and the climate crisis. Regardless of the impact, climate change is very personal.
In Ohio, we need urgent action to clean up our energy generation sources and reduce climate change pollution. Mayors of cities around Ohio are stepping up to invest in clean energy, but oil and gas operations are still leaking, venting, and flaring dangerous climate pollution at alarming rates. Voluntary measures are not working, and we need strong methane regulations now to reduce these direct threats to our children’s health. I don’t have the power to make that decision, but you do.
Ohio moms are grateful that the EPA is working to improve methane emissions standards to be more protective of public health and address methane’s contribution to the climate crisis. On behalf of the more than 80,000 members of Moms Clean Air Force in Ohio, thank you again for this opportunity today.