By: Vanessa Lynch, Pennsylvania Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: August 21, 2025
About: Environmental Protection Agency Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194
To: Environmental Protection Agency
My name is Vanessa Lynch and I am the Pennsylvania Campaign Coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force. I oppose EPA’s proposal to rescind limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles as well as the Endangerment Finding, which supports the regulation of methane, carbon, and other climate pollutants. These safeguards are critical for public health and the environment.
I have witnessed firsthand the impacts the oil and gas industry has had on my community in southwestern Pennsylvania, where I live with my two children and husband. A well pad has been fracked in a medium density residential area of my local township. 69% of voters in Pennsylvania, the second largest oil and gas producing state, support efforts to swiftly enact stronger standards on methane pollution from oil and gas development to safeguard the health and well being of our families.
Beyond the frontline impacts that directly affect my family, climate change has created numerous dangerous realities for families in Pennsylvania. From having the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the country, to extreme heat that’s resulting in increased hospitalizations, to dangerous flooding across my community, to severe wildfire smoke from Canada reaching my home—the impacts of climate change are all around me. And, as a pragmatic mother of two, I am acutely aware that the costs of these impacts on the physical and mental well-being of my family are far too high.
As a mother who spent the majority of my adult life in church, I can tell you with full certainty that my belief in the science of climate change is in no way religious. Climate change is real. The science is clear. My religious belief does compel me, however, to stand up for those who cannot speak for themselves, including children, who have the right to breathe clean air and to a future free from harmful oil and gas air pollution, extreme weather, extreme heat, and supercharged wildfires.
I strongly oppose efforts to undermine or revoke the Endangerment Finding and limits on tailpipe emissions, which are foundational to EPA’s ability to protect us from pollution, including the oil and gas sector’s methane and other harmful air pollution, which my family breathes each day.